


Suck the Water in my Chest (Cross My Fingers and Hope for the Best)

by callmejude



Series: Ice and Brine [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Food Issues, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Suicide Attempt, Tenderness, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wall Sex, White Walkers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-01-23 10:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12505804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmejude/pseuds/callmejude
Summary: Back from the Wall, Jon tries to mend his relationship with Theon on Dragonstone before they make way to King's Landing





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will be adding tags as each chapter is uploaded! This fic is completed, and a chapter will be added once a week until it is finished.
> 
> Note: I know Ghost is not on Dragonstone. I don't care, though. He's there now.

When they land in Dragonstone, it’s past twilight. Theon rushes onboard before the ship has even been properly moored, shouldering past dockhands below deck. He’s at Jon’s bedside like a ghost, hovering over his face.

“You’re hurt.”

Laid up against his bedding, Jon tries to laugh. “Well spotted.”

“Didn’t think you could get hurt,” Theon admits distantly. “Already being dead.”

Jon’s not sure if he means it as a joke or not. He offers a half-hearted smile. “It’s fine. I’ll be all right.”

Theon is not steady enough on his feet to help Jon back up the dockyard into the castle, but he hovers close while Ser Davos and Ser Jorah walk with him, as if prepared to catch him if they somehow both fail to keep him upright. 

A scream like a thunderbolt carves over the open sea and Theon whips his head around. Wingbeats churn in the sky and two massive shadows circle the masts of the ships. The dragons howl like they never have before. 

“The dragons,” he stammers, “there’s only two dragons.”

“We know,” Ser Jorah barks, a vicious hurt in his voice. 

Once they’ve helped Jon to his room, Davos helps him remove his cloak and his boots while Theon stands a few feet away, watching useless. The old sailor helps Jon into his bed and hurriedly excuses himself to help the rest of the crew disembark. When Davos leaves, Theon stays, standing awkwardly at the doorway. He watches after him for a moment before he looks back at Jon.

“Jon, what happened?”

Despite his exhaustion, Jon tells him everything. It’s like a tick, desperate to get it out to someone who wasn’t there, hoping it’ll make sense if he says it all. He watches Theon’s face, waiting for a hint of disbelief, of incredulity, but Theon only watches him entranced, like a child listening to his nursemaid spin an epic tale. Jon talks for what feels like hours, but Theon doesn’t move. He stands anxiously at the door the entire time he speaks, as if Jon might tell him to leave in the next breath. 

Suddenly, Jon bolts up, remembering. “I saw my Uncle Benjen.”

At that, Theon steps toward him, eyes focusing. “Beyond the Wall? I thought he was dead.”

“So did I,” Jon admits, staring down at his lap. Only after saying it does it start to sink in that he’s gone. He feels abruptly like a child. “He saved me, from the dead. I was surrounded and alone, and he saved me. There was no way I would have lived without him.”

Theon takes a breath. When Jon looks up at him, Theon’s eyes are trained on his face, watching him.

“How did he find you?” Theon asked.

“I don’t know.”

For a beat, Jon doubts Theon even believes him. He wouldn’t believe himself, either, if he hadn’t seen it. Even so, he’s beginning to question he saw Uncle Benjen at all. Maybe he deliriously dreamt the whole thing. 

Theon hasn’t said anything, and Jon feels the tick again, the need to fill the empty space.

“When they killed me — at Castle Black, when my brothers… they told me someone had word of Uncle Benjen. That was how they lured me outside. That was how they got my guard down long enough to attack me.” His throat feels tight. “They told me he was alive.”

Silent, Theon takes another step toward him, and Jon sees a yearning to comfort cross his face. It’s alarming, how easy it is to read him now. Unnerving, it’s unfair for Jon to see. Theon would have never allowed his emotions to be so obvious when they were young. It’s quiet while Theon realizes he doesn’t know what to say. It’s still silent between them when Ghost wanders in, big and white and quiet as a shadow. He pauses to lick at Theon’s right hand before curling calmly at the foot of Jon’s bed.

It’s such a familiar movement that Jon props up on his elbows to squint down at the direwolf on the floor. 

Theon clears his throat. “He — he’s been staying with me. All while you were gone.” He looks down at Ghost, and Jon watches him. “He’d gotten so big I hardly — hardly recognized him at first. Gave me a fright when I first saw him on the cliffs. Haven’t seen him since he was a pup fit in your arms.” Jon smiles, but it feels strangely like he shouldn’t. The words hang awkwardly in the air for a moment before Theon adds, “I think he missed you.” 

Nervous, Theon glances back toward the door, and Jon realizes he’s unsure if he’s still welcome. 

“I’ll let you rest,” Theon says finally, words tight behind his teeth.

When he turns away, Jon clears his throat to hold his attention. 

“I — you can stay,” Jon says softly, “If you’d like, I mean. I don’t mind. I could use the company.”

Theon looks back, eyes wide. They’re focused on the bed, rather than Jon’s face. 

Jon is foolish for saying anything. He’d meant the offer for Theon’s comfort, but with it hanging aloud between them, Jon realizes he wants Theon to stay. Beneath his bone-deep fatigue, Jon still feels nauseated from all the travel at sea, feels the overwhelming fear of barely escaping with his life still buzzing in his skull weeks later. The threat of tears are still choking him all the time. He’s so tired of being alone, of having to be king. Theon is the only one on this island who expects nothing from him but himself.

Theon hasn’t spoken, and Jon is starting to feel a prickle of shame at the back of his neck. It was selfish to ask. 

“If you’d… I understand if you’d rather sleep in your own —”

“No.”

It’s so abrupt and without any inflection that Jon isn’t sure if he’s denying or accepting the invitation. Maybe Theon isn’t sure, either. He wanders back across the room to Jon’s bedside, hesitating a moment before kneeling to remove his boots. Despite himself, Jon cranes his neck to watch, curious at how deft he’s become with only eight fingers.

It takes Theon several tries before they’re off, and Jon feels guilty for watching. Theon makes no move to remove his socks. His feet don’t look any different from Jon’s, when they’re covered. 

As Theon stands, he looks down at himself, visibly debating what else he’s allowed to shed.

“Don’t think you’ll need your cloak, in here,” Jon offers gently.

Theon nods, and unhooks it.

Still mostly dressed, he crawls in next to Jon and curls up in a ball. Jon can’t tell if it’s Theon that’s overheated or if it’s him that’s still suffering a chill from the ice. It doesn’t matter. He welcomes the heat, letting Theon rest his head on Jon’s shoulder. Theon doesn’t offer to kiss him, and so neither does Jon, idly stroking Theon’s back over his billowy homespun shift. Jon can feel Theon’s heartbeat is thrumming where he’s pressed up against Jon’s side. His breathing is tense against Jon’s neck. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. He’s curled into Jon as if they’ve slept this way every night for years. Theon’s breathing is still shallow and quick when Jon finally succumbs to sleep.

When Jon wakes the next morning, it’s slowly, over many hours. Grey predawn light sweeps over the black stone walls of the room, foggy and dense. He’s draped tight over Theon, who is pressed nuzzled into his chest like a child and still — blessedly — asleep. Jon watches him, curious. He remembers years ago, the night Theon had first dozed off in his room at Winterfell. He looks different when he sleeps, now. Smaller, and anxious. Jon wonders if he ever finds peace and calm anymore. 

For a long while as the sun rises, Jon doesn’t move, only watches. He’s been instructed by Queen Daenerys to rest so he’ll be in good health while they make plans to set sail for King’s Landing, and he can’t bear to wake Theon before he has to.

Distantly, Jon wonders how much worse it is when Theon wakes up alone. He’s glad Ghost had been here to keep him company. Jon had worried about leaving his wolf in a foreign land when he went back beyond the Wall, but the time aboard a ship to Dragonstone had already left Ghost lethargic and sick for days and Jon wouldn’t chance bringing him to sea again before there was no other choice.

There’s a stray curl of hair tucked into Theon’s sleeping eye, and Jon brushes it away before he can stop himself. 

Theon’s eyes fly open instantly, as if he’d been awake for hours. “Jon?”

Frightened, Theon’s eyes find Jon’s and he stares at him for a moment. 

It’s a comfort, having him look Jon in the eye. 

“It’s alright,” Jon says. “It’s me.”

Swallowing, Theon’s eyes fall to Jon’s chest, bare and scattered with dark scars. His hands, clenched under his chin, reach out to stroke the skin in front of him, tracing the curved wine-coloured scar over Jon’s heart again. Jon watches in silence. Theon’s touch is so careful and uncertain that it itches under his skin, lighting up a memory of terror, but he stays resolutely still. He hasn’t seen Theon this steady since he arrived on Dragonstone. Like he’s making sure Jon is real. 

Clearing his throat, Jon shifts so that he can get a better look at Theon’s face. “Are you all right?”

Theon nods, solemn.

At a loss, Jon mirrors him. He watches Theon trace patterns along his scars for a while before Theon’s fingers wander to his collarbone, and he settles his chin warmly over Theon’s head.

Finally, Theon asks, “Jon, why are you being so kind to me?”

The question causes Jon’s heart to sink in his chest. He had asked it of Theon once, when they were barely more than children — the first time he’d kissed Jon in the godswood, after all the Starks had left the two of them alone. Theon had laughed at him then, a laugh that bared his teeth like a wild dog backed into a corner. He had always seemed so guarded, when they were young. Furious at the mere insinuation of sensitivity.

 _“This isn’t kindness, Snow,”_ he’d told him, and Jon had believed him, even with his hands still buried tenderly in Jon’s hair. _“It isn’t for you at all.”_

It isn’t Jon’s answer.

“I’m not sure,” he says finally. “I’m tired of it, maybe. Tired of all of it. I’m exhausted, Theon. Perhaps I just believe you’ve suffered enough cruelty. There’s no further justice I can mete out to you. There’s nothing more I can do to you and call it fair.”

Theon doesn’t respond. 

A quiet Unsullied man with a gentle but serious face is the one to finally disturb them. Theon leaps up as he enters and stands as straight as he can manage, eyes pointed at his feet. Jon sees the far-off look on his face again. Unblinking, expecting punishment. But if the Unsullied man finds anything strange in Theon’s presence, he doesn’t let it show on his face. 

In a stilted tongue, the Unsullied tells Jon that the Queen hopes he is recovering well. “I am supposed to ask if you are hungry,” he concludes.

Theon shakes his head, but Jon admits he is, and the Unsullied leaves with a rather severe promise of breakfast.

Once he’s gone, Theon’s shoulders unwind. Jon reaches for him, feeling tender. His fingers close around Theon’s left wrist. He doesn’t let go until Theon looks at him. 

“It’s all right,” he says. “You’re allowed to sleep where you like.”

With a shuddering breath, Theon nods. He has no way to respond. He knows it’s true. Jon watches the fear drain from his body, until he finally collapses back onto Jon’s bed. Absently, Jon reaches up to scratch gently at Theon’s nape. He stays seated when a warm, stout Dothraki woman bearing a tray of food knocks and enters the room, but he doesn’t look at her. Jon feels his spine tense, under his hand. The serving woman doesn’t seem to notice, nodding a goodbye to them with a passive smile as she leaves.

“You should eat something,” Jon tells him carefully. 

He hands Theon a slice of bread from his plate, but Theon shakes his head. 

“Please,” Jon insists.

Jon holds out the crust until Theon finally takes it. He opens his mouth, a forced thank you on the tip of his tongue, before he remembers himself and closes his mouth again. Jon smiles.

Theon is still picking at the crust of bread when Jon is finished eating, but it’s still the most Jon has seen him eat since he’s arrived here. When they were younger, still boys in Winterfell, Theon used to stay late during celebratory feasts in the Great Hall, indulging in extra glasses of wine and second helpings of meat whenever they were offered to him. Grimly, Jon wonders if Ramsay somehow took his stomach, too.

True, Jon has never been particularly conversational, but he’s not sure he’ll ever become used to Theon’s newfound dependance on silence. He’d always been so talkative and boastful when they were growing up in Winterfell. Jon is desperate to chip at the oppressive quiet between them.

“You can stay here again tonight, if you’d like,” Jon tells him without prompting.

It feels strange to offer when the morning sun is still streaming through the window. Theon looks up from the nibbling on the crust of bread. He doesn’t say anything, so Jon shrugs to make it seem less important.

“I like the company,” Jon offers shyly. “And I don’t much care for sleeping alone, since living at the Wall.”

“You shared beds at the Wall?”

“No, I just mean —” Jon starts, before he notices Theon is smirking at him. 

Jon feels abruptly light, and a laugh bursts surprised and genuine from his chest. Theon ducks his head, but Jon can see a hint of a smile still on his face as he lifts the rest of the bread to his mouth.

They dress and descend out of the castle fortifications into the autumn wind. Together they walk with Ghost along the beaches, watching him sniff at the carcasses and ribbons of kelp along the rocky shore. Walking is still troublesome. Jon’s legs are achy and blistered from cold and travel beyond the Wall, but Theon matches his pace comfortably.

“I forgot how big they got,” Theon says as Ghost laps curiously at the seawater crashing within reach. “Haven’t seen one since —”

He stops abruptly, the memory of Winterfell settling in. Jon says nothing. As if sensing discomfort between them, Ghost trots back over. He lets Theon stroke his back before falling in step beside Jon. 

“He’s gotten to be rather massive, for a runt,” Theon mentions.

He sounds wistful, and Jon wonders if he were ever jealous of the pets of his and the Stark children. He would have never admitted such a thing, when they were pups — when he was proud of his sigil from another House.

It hurts to remember Ghost so small, milling about in a playful heap with his brothers and sisters. Sansa and Arya had both written him, when Queen Cersei had ordered Lady killed, and how Arya had thrown rocks at Nymeria until she ran away to keep her safe. He remembers, darkly, hearing what became of Robb’s wolf, and what happened to Rickon’s, before he died. He’d told his father the children were meant to have them, but now he suspects Ghost is all that is left, and Jon isn’t even a trueborn Stark. He pulls out of his thoughts to see Theon eyeing him curiously.

Desperate to change the subject, the next thought falls from his mouth before he can think better of it. “Have you spoken to Queen Daenerys about your sister?”

Theon’s face falls. He looks down at his feet and nods. For a while, Jon assumes that’s all that will come of the conversation as they walk.

By the time Theon speaks, Jon has almost forgotten why he would. “She’s not sure she can spare the men,” he admits, voice flat but understanding. “We have no ships to offer her war effort now. She says she — she says she can’t worry about her, now.”

Jon watches him quietly, watches the way Theon’s eyes stay on the waves, while he speaks. It’s hard for Theon to think of much else with his sister in a prison in King’s Landing. He wishes he could assure him that his uncle is nothing like Ramsay, that he could promise Yara’s survival.

“Euron is keeping her for something —” Jon starts, flinching from the clumsy phrasing when he sees the way Theon’s eyes widen and slide out of focus. “A strategy, a gambit of some sort. Euron has a plan, or Cersei does. Perhaps to marry her off, or compel loyalty in the Iron Islands. If Cersei was going to execute her then surely she would’ve done so by now. But she hasn’t. We still have time to help her.”

“Help her how?”

Jon frowns. He’s not sure. “You’re going to think of something.”

Theon doesn’t look as if he believes him. Jon doesn’t have anything else to say. 

“Shall I take you to see what we captured beyond the Wall?” Jon asks gently, just to change the subject.

Distracted, Theon glances up at him. “Is it — is it safe to?”

There’s a promise on Jon’s tongue that feels heavy in his mouth. _I won’t let it hurt you._ Instead he says, “It’s best you aren’t surprised when we show it to the Lannisters in King’s Landing. It can be… startling.” Theon looks nervous, so Jon adds, “It’s best if they’re the only ones who’re frightened.”

A smirk twitches on Theon’s face, unsure and anxious, “Well, I doubt I’ll be any less frightened in King’s Landing.”

Jon tries to smile. “Me, either.”

He’s not sure it’s the right thing to say until Theon smiles.

Tightening his cloak against the wind, Jon leads Theon back up the stoney steps to the looming castle. As they wander their way down to the cells, the walls get darker, tighter. The dungeons of Dragonstone are dark and wet, like the rest of the castle. They haven’t bothered to light many torches, save the few scattered around where The Hound is sitting, stretched lazily in front of the iron barred door of the last cell. As Jon and Theon venture closer, a torch on the wall of the cell casts warm golden light over the large wooden crate. Flickering shadows fan and radiate from the iron bars of the door. The Hound is entertaining himself just suitably, flipping a long dragonglass knife in his hands. When he notices the two of them he eyes Theon curiously. The torchlight dances over his gnarled face, and Theon stops short. He says nothing, makes no sound, and The Hound tilts his head, daring him to.

The way the shadows play over The Hounds scars do nothing to soften his features. He resembles the stone dragons that decorate the castle walls. But before Theon can flinch, Jon enters behind him, and The Hound grunts, losing interest.

“I thought he should see…” Jon begins. 

Theon steps back from The Hound, closer to Jon. His hand twitches, an aborted reach for Jon’s wrist. He’s frightened, but humiliated. Jon can’t tell if his fear is borne of The Hound’s melted glower or of the monster hidden away in the wooden crate. But he wouldn’t admit to either.

“Heh. Nothing to fear, then, lads. Thing is bound up good and tight,” The Hound growls, kicking his leg through the iron bars to knock at the crate almost casually. Something inside screams and the wooden planks shake as it rages. “It doesn’t know how to get out, if you keep it upright.”

Jon steps toward the crate and flips it open with the metal pry bar at The Hound’s feet. The crate rocks again, but only slightly. 

“Careful,” Jon tells Theon needlessly.

Theon creeps forward, his steps uneven. When he cranes his neck to look in the crate, he frowns. 

“It’s not —”

The crate rattles again, and Theon screams, stumbling backward and landing in the dirt at Jon’s feet. The Hound cackles. Jon holds out a hand to help him up, but Theon doesn’t take it. He’s still staring at the crate, waiting for it to move again. When it doesn’t, he looks up at Jon.

He’s shivering when he pulls his knees up to his chest, breath is coming too fast. Jon presses his fingers to Theon’s neck, relaxed and solid. The Hound will not be kind if Theon doesn’t keep a hold of himself. Jon gives a gentle squeeze, feeling the rhythm of his pulse gradually slow to calm as he masters himself.

“It’s not like the stories,” Theon says, voice awed.

“No,” the Hound grunts, “it’s not.”

Jon drops his hand. The one they caught is old, long past the age of frosted white skin and bright blue eyes. The skin and one eye have rotted completely from the one they have. He remembers the ones that surrounded him before Uncle Benjen had rescued him, the ones with eyes still watching, icy white skin still clinging to their bones. The back of his neck goes cold.

The Hound leans back in his chair to take the pry bar from Jon’s hand and slams the crate shut with it. 

“Does it have to be just like the fairytales for the bitch queen to believe us, I wonder?” he snaps. 

He offers the iron bar out in front of Theon’s face. Frowning, Theon takes it and the Hound pulls him to his feet.

“Doubtful,” Theon answers, voice oddly resolute. “What we’ve got is real enough for me.”

The Hound seems to find his answer funny. Theon’s jaw works, feeling laughed at, until the massive man says, “Real enough for anyone with a brain in their head.” He kicks back in his chair again, absurdly relaxed. “Still not sure that includes the Lannister bitch or anyone in that swarming wasp’s nest of a capital.”

Theon has nothing to say to that, only stares back at The Hound as if waiting for him to add something. When he looks back at the crate, Jon notices the sheen of sweat at his brow, and gives his shoulder an awkward pat. 

“It’s all right,” he says, voice low enough that The Hound may not hear him. “I’ve killed them before.”

Theon looks at him then, skin so pale he looks almost like a wight himself. It reminds him of Hardhome, of the wildlings he promised to protect rising from the snow with blood running from their mouths and ice-blue eyes. 

He shakes the thought from his head and says pointedly, “I’ll kill them again.”

On their walk back out of the winding dungeons, Jon tells Theon of Hardhome. Theon only listens, saying nothing, but just before they reach the top of the stairs into the main castle, Theon takes hold of his wrist, just for a moment, and squeezes. It’s hard to tell if it’s out of comfort or fear, but Jon feels it’s best not to ask.

The next morning, Jon offers Theon his bed again, and again the next morning. And after that, he doesn’t feel the need to offer at all. Theon never returns to his own bedchamber after their first night. 

They lie side by side each night, sometimes not even touching as they fall asleep. But Jon always wakes up curled around Theon like a cloak. Even on the mornings when Theon wakes before Jon, he’s never the first to pull away.

After the first few meals since Jon’s return from beyond the Wall, Theon starts to eat more. It’s still minimal portions that he takes onto his plate in the dining hall, but Jon notices Ghost getting fewer scraps sitting at Theon’s feet than he’d had before.

It’s been so long since Jon has had time to spend in the rookeries, that when he’s finally given the freedom to do so at Dragonstone, he finds himself writing separate letters to each of the Stark children, instead of just a single notice to Winterfell. He writes so much to Arya that he runs out of room on the scroll, and has to tie two together for the raven to carry. He writes another to Bran, full of questions on how he survived, on where he’d taken shelter. Sansa had mentioned he was different now, but had not explained how. When he writes to Sansa, he mentions that Theon is with him, and how he’s faring. She’d spoken so highly of what he’d done for her, he can only assume she’d want to know. 

It strikes him, as he packs away his ink and quills, that Theon may want to write Sansa himself. He hasn’t seen Theon for several hours, and sends out his own ravens before going to look for him. He may not even wish to write her. They haven’t spoken more of Sansa since Theon arrived at Dragonstone.

He walks down to the beaches, expectant to see him seated at the small bluff of rocks as he often is. Jon assumes being near the waves is like catharsis, perhaps healing for his years of northern-borne homesickness. But walking from one end of the shore to the next, Jon doesn’t find him anywhere. The sun is getting low in the sky, the wind too biting to stay outside. Theon would not be out here, now.

Curious, Jon retires to his room. He’s taken off his boots and cloak before he notices Theon, asleep, curled in his bed, shrouded protectively by Ghost, whose red eyes watch Jon as he stares from where he stands at the door. The wolf is so silent, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he was missing, too.

Theon’s body, already emaciated and frail, is dwarfed amidst Ghost’s bright white fur. It reminds him so strikingly of Bran, the last time he saw him, lying in his bed at Winterfell when he left for the Wall, the way gentle Summer laid stretched protective over his broken little body. The longer Jon watches Theon and Ghost, the more it looks as if Theon’s been laid dead on a pyre, draped in northern clothes. The thought sends Jon’s heart into his throat, and he steps forward until he can be certain of the steady rise and fall of Theon’s chest.

Ghost yawns, revealing long teeth and tongue, and lolls his massive head over Theon’s throat. Theon stirs, but doesn’t wake, and Jon doesn’t want him to. It’s late enough that he should sleep through the night this way, if he can. For one impossible moment, Jon considers bedding down on the floor beside them. Before he can realize how foolish the thought is, Ghost licks Theon’s face, pulling him from sleep, before hopping down from the bed without a sound.

There’s a moment, trapped in Theon’s eyes, where he is convinced he’s waking in the kennels. Jon is used to it now. He sees it every time Theon wakes.

“It’s alright, Theon,” Jon says before he can panic, before he can forget. “I was just curious where you’d gone off to.”

“I’d only meant to use the wash basin,” Theon says distantly. The rest has made his voice rough and cracked. “It was your wolf the one who wanted me to sleep.”

Jon smiles. Ghost does it to him, too, when he’s stayed up too long, herding carefully at his feet until he’s led Jon to his bed. 

“He’s not meant to take up half the bed when he does that,” Jon adds with a half-scolding scoff, eyes pointed on Ghost.

Theon shrugs. “I liked sleeping with the dogs.” The smile falls from Jon’s face, but Theon doesn’t seem to notice. “They bit me at first, but as the summer ended and it got cooler they liked having me there, kept me warm. They protected me from the Bolton guards. They liked to taunt me but the dogs frightened them so they would stay away. And if I slept in the kennels, it meant Ramsay hadn’t called for me.”

More than anything Jon wishes he had something to say, when Theon brings up Ramsay. Theon must know by now that the Boltons are no longer a threat, with Jon named King of the North, but he still hesitates to tell Theon that Ramsay is dead. 

The silence has stretched on for too long, and Theon seems to regret speaking. 

“I’m — I’m sorry,” Theon murmurs. 

“For what?” Jon asks flatly, ashamed of himself.

“It scares you, when I talk of him. You don’t like it.”

“I don’t like what he’s done regardless of whether or not you speak of it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Theon’s head is still bowed, remorseful, and Jon feels a swell of affection for him. He leans forward and kisses the top of Theon’s head.

“You weren’t asleep long, were you?”

Theon looks out the window, watching the sun sinking behind the horizon. “Not long, no.”

“All right,” Jon says, “Shove over, then.”

Theon scoots, bashful, Jon pulls him into the blankets. “I know I’m not as warm as Ghost,” Jon says with a smirk. Theon doesn’t smile, but his eyes brighten. 

“Warm enough,” Theon says so flatly it almost doesn’t sound like a joke as he curls against Jon’s chest.

Jon dreams of Summer, and the way Bran’s heart beat stronger when the wolf curled at the foot of his bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's actually crazy long because there wasn't a good place to split it, so. Enjoy that...?

The next morning, an Unsullied with broad shoulders and a pinched face comes to retrieve them. There’s a knock on the heavy ironwood door and Jon calls him in. Theon looks away, but doesn’t jump from the bed again. The Unsullied doesn’t seem to care what he’s seeing. He’s holding a tray with a plate of bread and roasted fowl, and sets it casually on the table near the hearth. 

“Queen Daenerys asks for your presence at the small council within the hour,” he informs them, face impassive.

Jon nods, “Thank you.” 

When Theon doesn’t acknowledge him, the Unsullied tilts his head. He’s not very practiced at the Common Tongue, and only repeats himself, more firmly. “Queen Daenerys ask for your presence at the small council within the hour.”

Jon gives Theon a gentle nudge. “He’s speaking to you as well, Greyjoy.”

Theon looks up, startled, and nods. 

The Unsullied man bows slightly to both of them and leaves without further ceremony. When Jon offers to share his food, Theon doesn’t protest. They eat quietly, and Jon watches Theon’s face, thinking again of how he’d looked so much like Bran the night before. He remembers his dream, and looks away.

After eating, Jon dresses for the council, pulling out his direwolf armour and fine fur-lined cloak. None of Theon’s clothing is in Jon’s room so he only sits in his bed clothes with his legs folded on the mattress, watching Jon, furs tangled around his waist . After pulling on his boots and tying back his hair, Jon walks with Theon to his chamber so that he can dress in fresh clothes as well. He watches Theon pull on a clean linen shirt with relative ease, pausing only to roll a sore shoulder, but in this state, quietly redressing, Jon can only be filled of memories from childhood. Before Theon had any scars. 

Jon isn’t sure how much longer he can keep the news of Bran and Arya to himself. It’s so rare that a raven comes with good tidings, anymore. He just wants to share it with someone else who would understand just how joyous the news is to him. Someone else who remembers the long summer days when Bran and Arya were born, watched them grow as children, lived under a roof with them. 

He looks up to see Theon struggling with his boots, seated on his undisturbed bed.

“Theon, there’s something I want to tell you. About Sansa,” Jon starts hesitantly. 

Theon sits up, eyes wide, expectant. Jon has been protective of her, and hesitant to share information when he was convinced she was all he had left, especially in a place like Dragonstone. But now he has Bran and Arya — _he has Arya_ — and it feels safe to be glad, and Theon deserves to know.

It’s obvious Theon has been dying to speak of Sansa, as well. Jon can feel it in the way Theon watches him. Jon regrets not offering Theon to write to her the night before.

“She — well she’s sent a raven from the North, with good news.”

There’s a hesitant smile on Theon’s face. Unsure, but eager all the same. He stands, one of his boots still untied.

“It’s Bran and Arya — they’re both alive. They’ve both made it home to Winterfell. They’ve been there for nearly a fortnight.”

It takes a moment for the smile to fall from Theon’s face. “Bran and Arya? At Winterfell?” 

Jon retrieves the scroll from a pouch on his belt, holds it up with the broken direwolf seal, showing Sansa’s elegant handwriting. He offers it to Theon, who takes it in both hands.

Theon doesn’t warm at the sight. He only looks confused. “But Rickon —” he says curiously, “Wh — what about Rickon?”

Jon blanches, and Theon’s back goes rigid. 

“What’s happened to Rickon?” he insists. “Was he not with Bran? Bran would have never left — is there no word of Rickon?”

“Rickon… Theon, Rickon was killed.” 

Theon’s face goes blank, back to the far-off, blind stare he had the night before Jon left for the Wall. “Wh — how?”

Throat tight, Jon shakes his head. “In the battle — to retake Winterfell… Ramsay had him as — Ramsay had him as a hostage. Theon, I’m sorry. I’d thought you would’ve heard.” At least he’d hoped.

The blood drains from Theon’s face. He doesn’t blink, and his jaw snaps shut against his teeth. He’s shaking, breath coming out in short gasps until he’s not breathing at all. The shiver in his back returns. Jon touches his shoulder, but Theon doesn’t look up. 

“Theon — there’s nothing I could’ve…” There’s a clench deep in Jon’s chest at the memory. In the oppressive silence, Jon trips over the words he repeats to himself every night. “There’s nothing anyone could’ve done.”

Theon doesn’t answer.

It was a mistake to tell him. Jon wishes he could take it back. He was a fool to bring it up. Despite all Jon’s lingering distrust and resentment toward him, when Theon meets his eyes, harrowed tears rolling down his face, Jon can’t help but want to offer comfort, rubbing soothing circles into Theon’s shoulder. 

“Ramsay,” Theon stutters, “it was Ramsay?”

Jon nods sadly. He’s not sure what to say. 

Theon throws Jon’s hand off of him, turning away. He’s swaying on his feet, suddenly, eyes wide and unfocused. His jaw cracks with a dry heave. 

Jon flinches, ready to steady him if he starts to fall. 

“How did — how did Ramsay even _find_ him?” Theon’s legs are trembling. He won’t be able to stand much longer. “I couldn’t — I looked everywhere. I looked for _days_ and I — How did Ramsay know how to…” The letter crumples in Theon’s hands. “How long did Ramsay have him?” he asks abruptly, “How long?”

“I don’t know,” Jon admits softly. His heartbeat is heavy in his throat. “I only — I only meant…”

Theon scowls. “Meant what?”

Jon glances sheepishly at his feet. “I only wanted to share the good news. Bran’s alive and well,” he attempts weakly. It no longer feels like good news. Theon looks as if he might faint. “And Arya — I’d heard nothing of Arya for years. Not since she disappeared from King’s Landing. I was so sure —”

Theon shakes his head, unmoved. “Rickon was the smallest. Why would he — how did Ramsay find him alone? Bran would have never left him on his own. What of the wildling woman Robb and I captured — she was always with them.” Theon’s face pulls, as if trying to remember something important from a time long since forgotten. “Or — or Hodor? I never found any of them. He shouldn’t have been alone. Where was his wolf?” 

Jon steels himself, closing his eyes against the image of Shaggydog’s severed head lying in the dead grass.

Theon is watching his face, and falls abruptly silent. “I — but he was… How could they have gotten his wolf? They’re so — they’re so strong…”

“Theon, Ramsay’s men are —” Jon hesitates. Theon knows far more than Jon does of Ramsay’s men. “They’re stronger than direwolves. And more.” 

“But he can’t have just been alone with the damn wolf!” Theon snaps. “Rickon was a _child,_ they can’t have left him on his own. Bran was — he’d have never left him alone. He’d have died to keep little Rickon safe, I know it.”

Jon knows it, too. He doesn’t want to speculate on how they could have been separated, certainly not to Theon, who’s starting to openly weep as he tries to continue. 

“He couldn’t have been — why was he alone, Jon? He was only a boy.”

“Theon, I don’t know—” Jon starts, but Theon isn’t listening, squinting back down at the crushed letter.

“What of Maester Luwin? He would never have…” he hesitates, trying to remember him back at Winterfell. “He — he must have been with them… he wasn’t — he wasn’t there...”

He’s starting to fade back into the trembling boy begging to know about death before Jon left Dragonstone for the Wall. Desperate and frightened. Jon can see the change on his face, watches the way his mind slides back to Winterfell, to the Dreadfort, prisoner in the kennels. His eyes are clouded, curled into himself.

“Theon —” Jon touches his shoulder again, but this time Theon wrenches back like a terrified animal.

“Don’t touch me.”

Fumbling, Jon tilts his head. “Theon, don’t do this. It’s — it’s all right. I don’t blame you for it, what Ramsay did.” Theon shakes his head, not meeting Jon’s eyes. He twitches slightly, at Ramsay’s name. “The Bolton’s betrayal had nothing to do with you, Theon. You weren’t even in Winterfell any longer.”

Theon crumples at last, dropping back onto his bed, hands grabbing at fistfuls of his hair. 

A fresh wave of guilt sweeps over Jon, and he steps forward. He wishes he hadn’t told him anything. He wishes he could take it back. He wishes it weren’t real. “Theon —”

“Stop it,” Theon hisses under his breath. “Stop — get away from me.”

Jon kneels and tries to force Theon’s eyes, but Theon flinches away from him, kicking his feet onto the bed to hide his face in his knees.

“Get away from me,” he repeats icily.

Anxious, Jon glances at the door. “Queen Daenerys has called council with —”

“I said _get the fuck away from me!_ ” Theon screeches, lashing out and shoving Jon back. “Get away from me! Stop talking and _get away._ ”

His voice is shrill, snarling and muffled against his knees. He’s curled so tightly into himself that Jon can’t even see his face. Jon gets warily to his feet.

“Theon, listen,” Jon says gently. “I hadn’t meant to — I only wanted…” He’s not sure what he wanted, anymore. Theon is ripping hair from his scalp. Jon reaches for him, to pull his hand away, but stops himself, afraid to touch him again. “Theon, please —”

“ _Leave!_ ” Theon screams, so loudly that Jon can feel it echo in the close room. He staggers back, at a loss.

“I’ll go,” he relents finally, “if that’s what you want. But — the Queen will send for you, Theon. You’re part of this council.”

Theon doesn’t answer. 

After watching him for a moment, Jon leaves the room, defeated. As he pulls the door shut, he hears Theon sobbing; the same inhuman wail he’d been unable to stifle the night before Jon left for the Wall. Then, Theon had curled into Jon, desperate for any middling comfort. It feels strange, being on the other side of the door now. 

Jon hesitates, unsure if he should leave, but he’s afraid someone may come to collect them and hear Theon’s cries. 

He turns on his heel and starts toward the Chamber of the Painted Table.

When he arrives, two Dothraki men in goat pelts open the doors for him. The Queen sits at the far end of the table, flanked by her quiet advisor Missandei and Tyrion. The grey, dreary daylight is against her back, making her silver hair glow. The other council members are gathered around the long carved table, murmuring in groups, Ser Jorah and Ser Davos talking quietly to themselves while Varys and Tyrion trade barbs. 

Daenerys’s first words to Jon as he arrives are, “And where is Lord Greyjoy?”

Jon looks over his shoulder, as if he expects Theon to be just behind him. “He’s resting in his chambers, Your Grace,” he says foolishly. “He’s… he’s not well.”

Tyrion looks up quizzically. “What’s wrong with him?”

Jon doesn’t answer. He feels a weight in his stomach, hard and sour, defensive. _Nothing,_ he wants stupidly to say. _Nothing at all, just leave him be._

Daenerys seems to read his face. She looks concerned, anxious, and turns to the Dothraki bloodrider at her side. She commands something to him in his foreign tongue, and the bloodrider nods, brisk, and leaves the room without even looking at Jon. Jon watches, stifling the urge to follow him, run in front of him and get to Theon first.

“Your Grace, I’m not certain he’ll — now isn’t the best time.”

It sounds absurd the moment it leaves his mouth. The others look at him strangely. Daenerys frowns, and Jon is abruptly horrified for her to learn anything of Theon. He not even sure what she might already know.

“It’s not,” Daenerys concedes, not unkindly. “Unfortunately this war waits for no one.” 

Jon doesn’t have an answer. He knows she’s right. 

He stands stiff and helpless in the doorway until she points at an empty seat at the table beside Tyrion.

“Please, sit,” she tells him, her voice cool, but not sharp. “My man will retrieve him and we can start.”

Jon nods and shuffles to his seat. Tyrion squints at him, that look Jon remembers from when the dwarf is figuring out something in his head. “And what is wrong with Lord Greyjoy? He’s been rather avoidant and fearful since you’ve arrived here on Dragonstone, Lord Snow.”

“Apologies, Lord Tyrion,” Jon snaps, jaw tight, “But such matters aren’t mine to discuss.”

It’s been years since they’ve seen each other, but Tyrion still has the insight to understand when his needling words will get him nowhere with Jon. He turns his attention instead to Varys on the other side of the table, but Varys has the good sense not to be looking at either of them. 

Jon is avoiding looking at anyone, staring at his hands when Daenerys sits up and speaks something in a harsh Dothraki tongue. Jon turns first when he hears the guttural sounds trip over the delicate syllables in _Greyjoy._ The whole table follows his attention to the tall Dothraki man she’d sent to fetch him standing alone in the doorway.

Foreboding, Jon feels his chest seize. The Dothraki clears his throat to speak the Common Tongue, now that everyone is listening.

“The sailor boy —” he starts, and holds up his hand with two fingers bent down to show he means Theon. “He would not come. Instead he went up the North Tower.”

Jon’s eyes snap to Daenerys.

“What’s in the North Tower?”

“Nothing,” she answers, confused. “It’s abandoned. The Dothraki prefer to camp outside the castle walls. We don’t have enough men to man the North Tower.”

Jon leaps from his chair. He hears the scrape of several others standing as well, but doesn’t bother looking back to see if anyone follows him. Blood is pounding in his ears as he sprints from the council room and flies down the dim corridors, passed huge black carvings of dragons along the walls. Someone calls after him as he trips his way up the north wing steps, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t look back. It doesn’t matter. Jon’s veins feel as if they’re pumping fire. His vision is blurring. He tastes fury. How could he have been so stupid?

He’s going to be too late. He’s going to get there and it’ll be too late. By the time Jon reaches the top of the tower, Theon will have jumped. Lost to the waves. Dashed to pieces on the cliffs. He’ll be dead, and it’ll be Jon’s fault.

What was he thinking, leaving him alone that way? 

Theon had asked him to leave. Theon had known what he wanted to do, and Jon let him. Jon turned a blind eye and let him.

Sweat is crawling down Jon’s neck, soaking his back under his armour. He tastes blood at the back of his throat by the time he makes it to the stairwell of the North Tower. He’s panting, head spinning and faint as he throws himself up the spiralling stairs, two at a time. 

At the top landing, flinging the iron door of the turret back, Jon feels a wave of relief wash over him at the sight of Theon standing high in a crenel of the rampart, looking out to sea. It’s hundreds of feet down the castle walls and cliffs to the stoney shore below. There was nothing between Theon and the thin air, nothing to stop his foot from simply stepping out into empty space.

“ _Theon,_ ” Jon wheezes, faint from lack of breath. “Don’t.”

Theon turns and looks over his shoulder as the door slams shut. His eyes are distant, bleary and red. The wind pulls and tosses his hair and the undone laces of his clothes. He’s not wearing a cloak, he isn’t even wearing his leather doublet or coat, only his thin linen smock. His gnarled hands are gloveless, the fingers he has left turning white as bone in the cold.

“Theon, please — please, don’t. Step back, take my hand.” Jon reaches for him.

The sky around them is like steel, and the winds feel as strong. It whips and stings along Jon’s face, freezing the sweat on his skin. It’s so much colder up high on the tower, and he feels the start of rain in his hair. He feels as if his lungs are full of burning coals, his vision swimming. He’s dares not venture any closer. 

“I killed him,” Theon gasps. Jon can barely hear him over the wind. “Little Rickon, I killed him — it’s my fault. All of them. Robb, Rickon, Yara —”

Jon shakes his head. He can’t think. It’s as if his mind is full of smoke. “It’s not.”

“Yes it _fucking is,_ ” Theon screams, and Jon flinches. “You know it is! I murdered innocent children! I murdered Ser Rodrik. He taught — he taught me everything I knew of the bow. I murdered them.” Jon says nothing to that. He keeps his hand outstretched. “And it’s no different, the others. I couldn’t save — I couldn’t save anyone. I wasn’t there to save Robb, I was too weak to save Yara, I couldn’t even keep — keep our fleet. I’m a _fucking coward._ ”

“Sansa,” Jon shouts over him. “You rescued Sansa.”

“I didn’t,” Theon sobs. The wind whips his hair, and he trembles again. “I was too — I was too scared. I gave her away to him, in the godswood. Did you know that? I just _stood there_.”

His body jerks from a chill, and Jon can barely breathe. Theon doesn’t have the balance he used to. The molten walls of the castle are slick with rain falling faintly overhead. He could slip so easily, whether he means to or not. When he looks down at Theon’s feet, he notices his left boot is still untied.

Down below, on the clifftops, Jon can hear an oddly haunting cry. Theon must hear it too, because he looks curiously over the edge of the castle walls in a way that makes Jon’s heart stop. It must be Ghost, he realizes, roaming on the shore below. 

Jon’s never heard him howl before. 

Davos once claimed that it was Ghost’s calls that had alerted him of Jon lying dead in the snow. 

The eerie howling distracts Theon long enough that Jon can take hold of his attention again.

“Sansa, she’d be dead if not for you,” Jon reminds him. He reaches out again, letting his hand hang between them. “You — you saved her life. Theon, she told me herself.” Theon’s hand clenches at his side, and Jon realizes what he must be thinking. “She told me — she told me how you both escaped Winterfell. That you jumped, then, from the walls of the castle. Together.”

Theon’s eyes fall back to the waves. He watches the dragons circling a catch off in the distance over the horizon, and doesn’t look back at Jon again. 

Jon feels a desperate strain in his throat. Ghost’s howling escalates, more frantic.

“She wanted — when we fought to retake Winterfell, she told me —” Jon has to keep talking. Keep talking of Sansa. If he keeps talking, at least Theon will be alive at the end of the next sentence. “She told me that she’d take her own life if I lost. She swore that she would have never gone back to him. She would’ve rather died.” Theon shivers on the precipice, and Jon wonders if he’s saying the right thing. “She’s thought of it so often, Theon. Before, even, as a girl when the Lannisters had her in King’s Landing. But she — she’s home now, do you understand? She… she’s safe.”

Ghost cries. Theon takes a breath. “We could have died, then. When we jumped,” he says so softly Jon has to strain to hear him. The rain is picking up in the wind, far too loud for Theon’s timid voice. “We wanted to, I think. I should have. Died then. Would’ve been right.”

“Theon, no. You saved her. _Please_. I can’t bear to tell her — she can’t lose you, too.”

“She’ll be — better off without me. You all will. Better off if I’d never set foot in Winterfell.”

“That’s not true,” Jon manages.

It’s getting hard to stand. Jon’s lungs feel like stone, like he’s drowning again. His entire body is trembling. It reminds him, distantly, of standing at the Wall, the removed sort of panic when a younger boy would stand too close to the edge. The fear had been different, then. Fear of falling — never fear of jumping. 

Theon is still watching the dragons. Ghost wails, and Jon forces his voice from his throat again.

“It’s — it’s not true, she’d be dead without you. And Yara — please, Theon. Think about your sister. She needs you.”

Theon looks back at him then, shivering with sobs, but he doesn’t speak. Cautious, Jon takes a step toward him.

“We can still save her,” Jon assures him, desperate. “You still have that chance. But you’ll — you won’t if you go through with this.”

“It’s my — fault,” Theon cries. 

Jon can barely hear him over the pounding in his ears, over Ghost still baying on the shore. Theon turns away again, mesmerized by the rain falling into the crashing waves below, and Jon panics. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he finally snaps. “So what if it is? What good does that do anyone? What does it matter if you still have time to make it right? What does it matter if your sister is a prisoner beneath the Red Keep?”

Theon looks back at him, and Jon lets himself breathe. 

“You can fix this. You can,” Jon implores, “but not if you jump, Theon. There’s nothing if you jump.” He feels his voice fading, cracking from the tension in his throat. “Remember what I told you? Remember what you asked me that night? You — there’s only nothing.”

Theon’s feet shift, just barely, back from the edge.

“Rickon — Rickon was just a boy,” Theon rasps. “He was my brother. I held him the day he was born. And I — I would have —”

“You didn’t,” Jon interrupts. “Give me your hand. Theon, please.”

Theon watches the crashing waves at the base of the cliffs below, daunting and loud, and for one wild moment Jon thinks that if Theon jumps, maybe he can still reach him, as if it’s possible to catch him while sailing over the edge of the castle.

When Theon reaches out his hand, Jon tears him from the edge. The blinding fury gives way to overwhelming, sweeping relief before Jon even gets a chance to feel it. He pulls Theon down onto the rampart floor, tight against his chest. He wraps both arms around him as if he’ll blow away in the wind if given the chance. Whatever it was keeping Jon standing upright leaves him in a rush, and his knees buckle under the weight of the both of them. The two of them crumple into a heap but Theon doesn’t flinch. He’s shivering, weeping against Jon’s cloak, and Jon’s eyes are stinging. He pulls Theon away from his chest to look him in the face, but he’s so gaunt and small that Jon can barely stand it. 

Shaking, he presses his forehead to Theon’s, listening for the sound of Theon’s shuddering breath over the roar of the wind.

On the cliffs below, Ghost finally falls silent.

“You can’t,” Jon manages. “Please, please don’t try that again. You _can’t._ ”

Theon doesn’t respond, shaking, voiceless against Jon’s chest. His linen shirt is so thin and soaked that Jon can see his ribs through where it clings damp against his skin. His teeth are chattering in his head and his skin is like ice. Jon presses a kiss to Theon’s forehead, cupping his face with both hands. 

“Please,” he says again. 

Jon’s racing heartbeat makes everything seem slow. It feels like hours before Theon nods dimly. Doesn’t even seem to hear him. The fury returns before Jon can think to tamp it down, and he shakes Theon by the hair. 

“Promise me.”

Theon doesn’t blink. Tears are rolling freely down his face, and his eyes are watching Jon as if waiting for a trap to spring. He says nothing.

Jon shakes him again, desperate and furious. “I said _promise me._ ”

For just an instant, terror passes over Theon's face. “I promise,” he chokes, “I promise, I’m sor — I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I promise.”

The air leaves Jon’s lungs in a fog, and he pulls Theon back to his chest. He’s terrified to let him go, even long enough to get him inside. He’ll disappear if he lets go. He’ll wash away in the rain. It will have all been for nothing.

There’s a heavy _clang_ of the turret door being thrown open door and Jon buries Theon closer to him, shielding him from view before looking over his shoulder. Ser Davos, Ser Jorah, and the Dothraki bloodrider who alerted Jon are all standing at the landing, taking in the sight of them with varying looks of concern, exasperation, and contempt. 

He’s not sure what to say, and for a moment says nothing. Ser Davos steps toward them, and Jon shakes his head.

“I — I have him,” Jon breathes at last. 

Stupidly, he wants to guard Theon’s dignity. No one should see him like this, least of all strangers. For a moment, Jon’s memories tangle, and he remembers a Theon who would have rather died than be seen this way by anyone. The thought only makes him hold Theon tighter.

“Go, it’s alright. I’ll —” He can’t grasp the words, can barely hear himself over the wind and Theon’s sobs still heaving in his ear. The panicked smoke is still clouding his thoughts. “I have him.”

The Dothraki man makes a face and leaves, stepping past Jorah, who glances back with a suspect look of his own before following. They’re going to tell Daenerys, Jon knows. He wishes he knew what that meant for Theon. 

Davos doesn’t follow either of them, hesitating. 

“He’ll die of the cold up here much longer, Your Grace.” he says finally, “His fingers and lips are already turning blue. Let me help you get him inside.”

“I said _go,_ ” Jon commands, and Davos startles, confused. Jon swallows the lump in his throat and glances down, embarrassed. “Please, Ser Davos. I’ve got him. I’ll bring him down in a moment. Just go.”

Davos leaves in stages, stopping every few steps to look back, and hesitating before starting down the stairs. He doesn’t close the door behind him. He’ll be back up the stairs in a moment if they don’t follow after him soon enough. He looks back at Theon, shivering against his cloak, and wraps it protectively around him, rubbing his hands over Theon’s thin arms to warm them. There are thin salty tracks of tears whipped across his face, tears thrown every way by the wind, and Jon reaches up to wipe them away.

“I’m sorry,” Theon says again, tears smearing slick and cold against Jon’s glove. 

Davos was right, Theon’s fingertips are nearly blue and so icy to the touch that it’s hard for Jon to believe he isn’t dead after all. He shields Theon’s face with his glove to keep the wind off him, and waits for him to meet his eyes again.

“You heard Ser Davos. You can’t stay out here,” he says gently. “We have to get you inside. All right?”

Theon nods. 

When Jon tries to get to his feet, his legs are trembling. He can barely stand well enough to help Theon to his feet. It’s effort to pull the heavy door shut behind them, Jon’s hand tight around Theon’s wrist, not letting go for an instant. He leads Theon down the tight coiling stairs, distantly afraid that Theon might try and throw himself down them.

“You’re nearly frozen solid,” Jon tells him distractedly. It’s something his father would have said, to either of them or any of his trueborn children, after playing together in the summer snows. It’s jarring to think, and he shakes the memory from his head. “I — I’m going to have someone draw you a warm bath. It’ll —”

Theon stops short so abruptly that Jon nearly loses his footing on the stairs. On the step above him, Theon is staring at his feet, hair dripping and fingers trembling.

“Theon?”

He only shakes his head.

“Theon, please. You’ll freeze, otherwise.”

“I’m — I’m fine,” Theon insists, bellied by the tremor in his voice.

Frowning, Jon gives his wrist a tug, trying to get him moving again, but Theon only grabs for the banister. 

“It’s alright,” Jon assures softly, “I won’t — I won’t let anyone else see —”

“ _Stop._ ”

He’s shivering so much so abruptly that it can’t only be from the cold. He’s not looking at Jon anymore. He’s not looking at anything. Jon’s shoulders sag. He wishes, ridiculously, that he could pick Theon up in his arms and carry him down the rest of the way. 

“Theon,” he says with a sigh. “Come now, stop this. No one is going to hurt you.”

Theon doesn’t answer. 

Jon moves to stand in front of him. He’s taller than Jon, always has been. When standing a step above him, Jon doesn’t even have to duck his head to look him in the eye while Theon’s staring at the floor.

“I won’t hurt you. I won’t even touch you, if you don’t want. I’ll stand at the door, far away as I can.”

Saying the words, Jon foolishly doubts himself. Through the panic, the idea of ever again being farther than arm’s length from Theon sounds outlandish. 

“I won’t hurt you,” Jon repeats. “Just — let me do this. All right? If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else.”

He waits until Theon nods before giving him another careful tug on the arm and they descend the rest of the stairs. Davos is waiting for them both at the foot of the stairs, hands behind his back, pretending valiantly not to listen. Jon resists the instinct to step in front of Theon again. 

“Your Grace —” Davos starts, but Jon holds up a placating hand.

“I’m sorry, Ser Davos. For my outburst,” he says, not sure if that’s what Davos is expecting, but feels it necessary regardless. “I — I hadn’t meant to… you were right, he’s freezing. Could you find someone to draw a bath for him?”

Davos’s eyes slide to Theon and he nods. “Of course, Your Grace. But I’m afraid the Queen wishes to speak to you.”

Jon frowns. “Can it wait?”

Davos glances at Theon again. Theon stares hard at the floor. Jon’s gloved hand is still wrapped around Theon’s wrist. When he releases it, Theon moves to slide his hand behind his back. 

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” Davos says with an awkward smile, “but it’s regarding your rather hasty exit from our council. Lord Greyjoy has been requested, as well.”

“It can wait,” Jon decides, defensive. “Find someone to draw him a bath, please.”

“Your Grace, I don’t mind watching the lad, if —”

“No,” Jon says quickly, feeling Theon tense behind him. “I’m sorry, Ser Davos. I trust your discretion, I do, but you must understand that Lord Greyjoy would not. Give the Queen my apologies and assure her that I will speak to her in due time. Someone has to see to him, and I would rather not cause anyone else further trouble.”

There’s a question poised on Ser Davos’s tongue, Jon can see it in his eyes, but he thinks better of asking. 

Instead, he only nods. “Your Grace.”

As he departs down the hall, Jon hears Theon let out a breath. It sounds tense, so Jon grabs hold of his wrist again. 

“I’m sorry,” Theon says quietly, “I didn’t mean for this to —”

“I know you didn’t,” Jon interrupts, storming forward with his hand still clamped around Theon’s wrist. The words leave him with unnecessary venom, and Theon falls abruptly silent. 

Guilty, Jon sighs. He slows, meaning to apologize, but he can’t muster the strength to look back at Theon again. His body is becoming too heavy to operate any longer. He marvels that the daylight is still glowing its dreary pale beams through the windows. This day has lasted years, he’s sure.

Theon keeps his head down as they walk. They don’t pass anyone they recognize, no one who speaks the Common Tongue, but Jon sees the milling Dothraki eye Theon strangely and mutter amongst themselves as they pass in the halls. The bloodrider who followed Jon must have informed the others of what he had seen. He pulls Theon close by his side as they walk.

When they reach Theon’s room, a bath basin has been filled below the lip and a tall, lank Unsullied is standing at the door. He nods to them on his way out, but must not speak the Common Tongue, either, because he doesn’t say anything to either of them. Jon wonders if they’ve all heard already, too. If the bloodrider told them, or perhaps Ser Jorah. Gossip travels fast in this dour castle. 

Jon leads Theon inside and latches the door shut behind them. The room is small, and the steam of the tub fills it quickly, leaving condensation collecting on the cool stone walls, and on the wooden chair left beside the basin.

“I’ll move the chair,” he offers, starting toward it, but Theon shakes his head.

“You don’t have to.”

Theon would rather he be close. He nods. “All right.”

Theon is silent as he strips himself, not crying, not muttering, and Jon sits, his eyes pointed to the stone floor. It takes him a few minutes with his shivering, numb fingertips. When Theon stands naked beside the tub, Jon holds out his hand without thinking. Theon looks at it a moment before taking it, balancing as he steps himself carefully into the water and then dropping Jon’s fingers as if they burn his skin.

Theon doesn’t move to wash himself, sitting hunched over himself in the bathwater as if he’s a stone. His trembling dissipates slowly, shoulders still shaking from where they sit above the water. Jon sighs and leans back in the chair. He doesn’t keep his eyes on Theon longer than he has to, and neither of them bother speaking.

After a moment, Theon’s hands curl over the edges of the tub, and Jon watches the grip of his right hand struggle as he tries to dip his head beneath the surface. Jon watches him, alert, but he only stays under for a second, emerging with a quiet gasp, water running down his neck. For just a moment, his eyes shut and face cresting from the bath, he looks no different than he had when they were young. 

He doesn’t wipe the water from his eyes, and Jon watches it drip steadily from his curls, down his neck and over his throat. In the godswood springs, Theon had never bothered shaking the water from his eyes. He always said Greyjoys saw better through the haze of water than they did through thin air. Despite the incredible stone weight of his body and panic still pumping in his heart, Jon smiles.

“You look yourself, in the water,” Jon says, breaking the silence.

Theon jolts, just slightly. When what he said sinks in, the corner of Theon’s mouth twitches, the faintest hint of a smile, but it disappears quickly.

“Is that even a good thing, anymore?” he wonders aloud.

“I think so.”

Theon looks up at him. With the wet hair still hanging limp and dripping in his face, he looks like a child. Jon’s hands ache to touch him, but he doesn’t. Theon breaks the gaze first, turning back to the water.

“He used to taunt me, whenever he’d bathe me.”

Stomach lurching, Jon feels bile stick in his throat. He says nothing.

“It didn’t happen often,” Theon adds quietly. “Mostly I got doused by basins in the kennels with the dogs.”

It feels like a test, and Jon isn’t sure what Theon wants to hear in response to any of this. He wonders if Theon would’ve said anything if Jon had just stayed quiet. Is that what he’d wanted? 

Jon looks down at his lap. He should at least say _something._

“I’m not going to do that,” Jon offers lamely.

Theon doesn’t answer. He cups water in his mangled hands and splashes it over his face. He’s silent again, still, and Jon leans back in his chair, resting his head against the back. It’s warm and quiet, and he’s never been so tired.

“Jon?”

Jolting, Jon snaps up, thinking for a frenzied moment he might have dozed off. His heart is pounding, breath coming too quickly in the steaming room. Theon could have drowned himself, and Jon would have been completely useless to stop him.

Only at the startled look on Theon’s face, the rest of him unmoved, does Jon realize he’d merely shut his eyes in the silence. Sighing, he sits up straighter.

“Sorry, what is it?”

Theon turns and looks at the door before meeting Jon’s eyes again. “The Queen will probably send for us, soon. If she — if she wants to speak to us.”

The idea makes Jon want to scream. He can’t remember another time he’s been so close to tears. He’s exhausted. He feels helpless and cold and has never wanted so desperately to sleep. Not beyond the Wall, not after the battle for Castle Black, not ever.

He clears his throat. “Would you like me to fetch you a towel?”

Theon nods, and Jon gets to his feet, dragging himself to the freestanding cupboard on the other side of the room, where they stash the bath linens. Theon waits sitting patiently in the bathwater for him to return, and reaches out for his hand before it’s offered. It’s a small, shy gesture, but Jon’s heart skips in his chest at the sight of it. 

Jon picks Theon’s clothes off the stone floor as Theon dries himself. When he’s dressed, Jon pulls the door open to see Davos standing in front of him, poised to knock.

“Ah,” Davos says at the sight of them. “Fantastic timing, Your Grace. The Queen is up in the Chamber of the Painted Table. She’s expecting the both of you.”

“Right,” Jon says tersely. 

Kindly, Davos shakes his head. “I don’t believe it will be long,” he says gently. “The Queen has suspended the rest of the council discussion until tomorrow morning when everyone is… more rested.” 

Despite himself, Jon feels a weight lift from his shoulders. “Right,” he says again, gentler this time.

Davos accompanies them to the Chamber, and Theon keeps so close to Jon that he’s worried he’ll trip them both. Davos notices. Jon can feel his eyes boring into the side of his neck. But he doesn’t say a word, instead only bowing shallowly when they reach the door of the Chamber.

“Your Grace,” he says warmly, and then nods kindly to Theon. “Lord Greyjoy.”

Theon doesn’t expect to be addressed. He seems to have forgotten Davos’s name, and only says, “Oh.”

Davos has already departed, but Theon looks at his shoes, humiliated. Jon reaches up and gives his shoulder a squeeze before shoving the door open.

Daenerys is seated at the far end of the table when they enter, like she had been earlier that day, only now she is alone. The chamber is empty except for the three of them, not even her trusted bloodriders are there to guard her. The open window behind her is dimming with evening twilight, winds roiling in from the sea. Torches line the walls and the molten black walls glow with twitching firelight.

She may be alone, but Jon is not mistaken. Neither of them are a threat to Daenerys.

She smiles at them, warmer than Jon would have expected. 

“I hope Ser Davos has told you that I’ve dismissed the council until morning,” she says, getting to her feet. She starts toward them both with a calm, measured stride, silver hair trailing down her back in the lamplight. Jon had expected the tempered, quiet fury of when he’d first laid eyes on her in the throne room of Dragonstone, but rather, she is very deliberate in showing she is not upset. “Perhaps it was hasty of me to assemble my advisors so soon when you are still recovering from your excursion beyond the Wall. I don’t think any of us expect you to have your minds on the correct matters, as of now.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Theon’s voice startles both Daenerys and Jon, who turn to him in shock. Daenerys recovers first, smiling. 

“Of course,” she replies kindly. “You have pledged your service to me, Lord Greyjoy, and that is an honour that I value dearly, do not mistake. You and Lord Snow both. I only want to urge you to get some rest. I’ll send you something to eat, if you’d like.”

Theon gives a quick shake of his head, his voice gone as quickly as it came. 

The look on Daenerys’s face is gentle, and Jon can tell she’ll be sending meals to their rooms regardless. She takes another step, forcing past Jon to stand in between them without touching Theon. 

Theon drops his chin a fraction, but doesn’t flinch.

“I also would like you and I to speak alone, Lord Greyjoy. After you’ve had a night’s rest, of course.”

Theon looks at her, cautious, and Jon chews on the inside of his cheek. Theon’s eyes snap to Jon, just for a moment, but he nods.

“Of — of course, Your Grace. Thank you. My apologies, again.”

Daenerys shakes her head, a weary smile on her face. “I am no stranger to grief or regret myself, Lord Greyjoy, nor its effects on one’s heart. Least of all that. We all grieve. Apologies for such things are not necessary. We simply must endure it, if we can.”

Theon meets her eyes. Something silent passes between them, and Theon jerks his head in a quick nod. 

She turns then to Jon, eyes still gentle, but her mouth held in a firm line.

“I would prefer he not be left alone, tonight,” she tells him pointedly. Jon realizes with a jolt that she must not know that Theon hasn’t slept in his own chambers since Jon’s return. 

He nods, feeling exposed.

“Of — yes, Your Grace, of course,” he stutters, voice low. He can feel Theon’s eyes on him, but doesn’t look up.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Theon says again.

As they’re dismissed, Theon keeps again at Jon’s heels. The sun is still streaming through the windows, but Jon wants nothing more than to sleep. Theon trails Jon all the way to his room, never even appearing to consider making for his own chambers. Without a word, Jon opens the door for him and latches it quickly behind the both of them. 

Jon pulls off his boots and sets them at the door, and is halfway through stripping out of his leather doublet when Theon lunges for him, snatching handfuls of his hair to pull him into a kiss. Jon’s body is screaming, exhausted, but Theon’s kiss is demanding. He can’t bear to push Theon away, even as drained as he is. If this is what he needs, Jon won’t risk denying him.

“Are you sure —?” is all he manages to say before Theon silences him with another kiss.

Jon allows it, responding carefully, until he notices Theon is trying to pull him onto the floor, tugging at his elbows.

“What — what’re you doing?”

Theon doesn’t seem to understand the question. “It shouldn’t — it shouldn’t be on your bed. Not after — after what I did. Take me on the floor.”

Feeling a twist in his stomach, Jon frowns. He straightens and gives Theon a firm tug. “Don’t be ridiculous, come on.” 

Theon stays where he is. “I — I shouldn’t —”

Jon pulls him down onto his bed, leading Theon’s mouth down to his own. “You should,” Jon purrs against his mouth. 

The kiss is simple, and Theon lets himself be lead into Jon’s bed with it, laying back against his furs and letting Jon strip off his clothes. Theon lets his clothes come off easily this time, falling out of his tunic and letting Jon remove his pants without hesitation. Jon is careful not to stare, not to falter. He slides his hands quick and careful over the steep angles in Theon’s hips. It’s still so jarring, the subtle curve between his legs. 

When Jon presses a kiss to his neck, Theon lets out a long, heavy breath.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Anxious, Jon lets out a soft little laugh. “I like to.”

He’s not sure what he expects from that, but it isn’t for Theon to frown and look away from him. When he doesn’t say anything, Jon kisses him again, brief and soft on the sharp edge of Theon’s jaw. Theon grinds his teeth, body tense like a whipcord. Jon cups his face, thumb tracing along his jawline.

“It’s all right,” he whispers against Theon’s lips. “Are you all right?”

Theon squints. He nods once, curt, and reaches behind his head for the windowsill. He can’t reach the lamp oil, but Jon understands, taking the vial from the sill and slicking his fingers. 

“It’s all right,” he repeats calmly. It’s an odd sort of compulsion, to say it over and over. Jon’s hand is shaking as he slides it between Theon’s legs, holding his breath to stay calm. Theon seems as if he’s turning into glass under Jon’s touch. Fragile and brittle.

“Theon, are — are you…?”

Theon’s eyes are closed tight, his breath coming out in short, static gasps. When Jon’s hand slows, Theon shakes his head. “Keep — keep going.”

Hesitant, Jon leans forward and kisses Theon again, gliding his hand gently until he hears Theon whimper against his mouth. Jon cups his face, deepening the kiss as he grinds Theon against his own hips. Theon shudders, but says nothing else. His silence hangs heavy in the room, so Jon keeps pressing kisses to his mouth to make the quiet seem natural.

When Jon finally moves his kisses down Theon’s throat, Theon pulls a long breath through his teeth.

“Hit me.”

Jon pulls back, confused. “What?”

“It’ll feel better, once you start.”

“Once I —”

“Once you start to hit me. You’ll feel better. Stop being angry.”

It’s like ice water doused over him. For a moment, Jon’s almost sure he’s forgotten how to breathe.

“What — what are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

Impossibly, Theon looks frustrated with him. “I’m not supposed to — what I did, you’re angry with me. You made me promise.”

“Theon, I’m not —” Jon’s voice comes out hoarse, as if he’s been screaming. “I’m not angry. I’m _worried_ for you.”

“Stop it,” Theon snaps, suddenly livid. He twists away from Jon, and Jon climbs off of him, trying to give him space. Theon sits up, frowning. “You must still be angry. You haven’t done anything yet. To punish me. Just do it, Jon, you’ll feel better. I swear it.”

“Theon, stop this,” Jon whispers. His vision swims, and he shuts his eyes. “Stop — I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re supposed to!” Theon’s voice cracks as it raises, echoing off the stoney walls. “You can’t just — you have to. I want it. I made — made you angry.”

“You didn’t,” Jon hisses through his teeth. 

Theon rears back to scratch at Jon’s shoulder with all the strength he has. It barely stings, but Jon grabs his wrist, holding it down against the wolfskin.

“ _Stop it,_ ” Theon screams, struggling to pull out of his grip. “Do it! I’m telling you to! Hit me! Hit me! Do something! Punish me, you _useless bastard!_ You’re supposed to — supposed to punish me —”

Jon’s mind feels thick like honey when he finally grabs Theon’s chin, holding his face to keep eye contact with him. Theon snarls at him like a dog.

“Don’t. Enough. I am _not_ like him, Theon.” He can’t tell if it’s him or Theon who is shaking. “Don’t you dare say it. I am not like the animal who destroyed my home and savaged my sister — who shot an arrow through my baby brother’s heart.” Jon swallows the taste of bile in his mouth. “How could you? I am not — I am never going to hurt you.”

“Stop it,” Theon says again, voice soft now, shivering with tears. “Stop being like this. You can’t just — you can’t just keep forgiving me! Not when I — I keep — ruining _everything._ ”

Tears roll down Theon’s temples into his hair. Jon moves to wipe them away, but Theon only rips his head back and tries to bite him. 

Theon’s voice catches hard against the lump in his throat when he finally begs, “Please — please punish me. I want it. Please.”

For just a moment, Jon recalls a scene from a lifetime ago, folded over Theon’s prone body with a hand wrapped over his throat. He remembers the light sparking in Theon’s eyes, the way he held his wrist to keep him there. Theon had wanted it that way once, innocently, willingly. It was easy to give Theon everything he wanted then — simple. But that Theon is gone. As Jon lets the memory dissolve, he realizes that Jon is gone, as well.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says softly. It feels wrong to apologize, disorienting. “I can’t. I won’t, Theon, I won’t do it.”

It enrages him. Theon tears out of Jon’s grip and beats against his chest, kicking helplessly at every bit of Jon he can reach. When Jon tries to bow over Theon’s body, he lifts his head and bites into Jon’s neck. It’s so sudden and burns through to Jon’s shoulder, and Jon shoves him away on instinct. Theon hits the furs screaming, hysterical, but his voice is too raw to carry far enough to echo anymore. Jon feels sick, just tries to hold him still. He waits until he feels Thoen’s body finally fall limp underneath him. 

Covering his face with his maimed hands, Theon is taking shuddering breaths between his missing fingers.

“I _hate_ you,” Theon sobs finally.

Jon shifts away from him to let him breathe, but Theon doesn’t move. When Jon lays next to him against the furs, Theon rolls onto his side, facing away. For a moment, Jon expects him — chest tight and heart hammering in his ears — to get dressed and leave. But he doesn’t. Jon watches Theon’s shoulders tremble until his breathing falls even.

The sun is only just setting out the window. He reaches for Theon, too scared to touch him, but letting his hand close the distance between them, fingers just out of reach of running through Theon’s hair. 

Exhaustion has hit him with more force than Jon thought even imaginable. He struggles to keep his eyes open, watching Theon breathe. He could wake up in an instant. Even if Theon hates him, Jon is terrified to leave him alone. He’d promised the Queen that he’d watch over him. He can’t fail them. He rails against his own bone-deep weariness, but eventually his eyes become too heavy to keep open, and he fades away.


	3. Chapter 3

When Jon wakes, he is alone. Blood running cold, he shoots up from the bed, eyes scanning, frantic, but Theon is nowhere to be seen. Without bothering to pull on his boots, Jon bursts from the room in bare feet and runs headlong into Davos, who grabs him by the shoulders, a little staggered by Jon’s appearance.

“Your Grace —”

Jon can’t breathe, still half asleep. “Theon — Lord Greyjoy is missing. He’s—”

Davos squints at him. “Lord Greyjoy is already attending the council at the Chamber of the Painted Table, Your Grace,” he says gently. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Panic leaves Jon’s body so abruptly the room spins. He exhales, a shudder running down his arms and out his fingertips. It’s oddly reminiscent of Davos finding him impossibly alive at Castle Black, a solid, stoic presence as Jon struggles to piece together his surroundings. He steps forward, meaning to follow Davos to the council, but Davos holds him steady by the arm.

“Your Grace,” he says calmly, glancing down from Jon’s face. Jon follows his eyes to his bare feet. “Ah, forgive me for saying, but I think, perhaps, it may be required that you look a bit more presentable.”

Lightheaded, Jon lets out a laugh, feeling a little mad.

After dressing, Jon follows Davos, only slightly embarrassed, up the steps to the Chamber of the Painted Table. Two Dothraki guards pull open the doors. Theon is seated between Daenerys and Varys as if he’s been there for hours. Ghost lays on the floor next to him, his massive head rested gently on his lap. When Jon steps forward, Ghost lifts his head to look at him, but otherwise doesn’t move, more interested in the absent way Theon is scratching behind his ears. Theon looks up as Jon enters, as well, but doesn’t keep eye contact long, instead dropping his attention immediately back to his lap.

Jon tries not to stare at him as he’s seated. 

The discussion is generally which kingdoms they have. Lord Tyrion laments the loss of Dorne, devolved to civil war after the loss of their royal family. Varys provides the latest news on the progress of the Unsullied army across the Westerlands and the Reach, the latest ravens charting their course having arrived several days ago. But Jon struggles to focus. Most of the talks fades from his mind as soon as he hears it, until Daenerys begins explaining how she plans to group them together. 

“We have to appear as a unified army, an alliance. We have the greater numbers, and they know it. We must remind them,” she says, tapping her finger on the table’s surface. “I’m told this Lannister woman does not scare easily. We must meet ferocity with ferocity. All of us.”

Jon notices Tyrion and Varys share a loaded glance across the table, before their eyes turn to Theon.

He isn’t the only one to notice the exchange. Jorah clears his throat, looking apologetic. “Is it wise, then, Your Grace, to bring Lord Greyjoy on this parlay? Perhaps he can benefit from further rest than we can sacrifice.”

Ser Jorah doesn’t mean to seem unkind, but Jon grimaces, unable to keep from speaking up. “He is the son of the Lord of Pyke. His sister, Lady Yara, is the rightful heir and Queen of the Iron Islands and currently a prisoner in the Red Keep.” He looks from Tyrion to Varys but both appear unmoved. “The Greyjoys swore fealty to the Queen’s cause the same as I did. The same as you did. Does their allegiance and sacrifice stand for nothing?”

“They haven’t got any ships,” Jorah notes, solemn.

“The Night King has no ships, either,” Jon argues. “If we’re successful in this parlay, we’ll be marching north regardless. And the Iron Fleet won’t sway the odds of that battle one way or another.”

“With respect,” Tyrion interjects with a fierce tone, “Lord Greyjoy will be of no help to us or anyone else at this parlay if he is throwing himself from towers and falling to tears at a moment’s notice.”

Jon feels fire in his throat. He turns on Tyrion, hands shaking, but Varys offers a placating interjection before he does.

“Please understand, Lord Snow. Cersei has an enormous talent for routing out weakness,” he agrees, but not without a sympathetic glance at Theon. “If she senses a weak link in our chain she will exploit it with all her might and cunning. She may threaten Lady Yara. Savagely. It’s possible the only reason she’s keeping her alive is for such a purpose.”

“They’re right,” Theon mutters, head bowed as if he’s speaking to Ghost. “I’d be no good to anyone, there.”

“They’re wrong,” Jon says with more force than he’s used to. He feels eyes on him, and tries to look away from Theon, at Tyrion or Varys instead. He had not wanted to make a scene. “His presence signifies a challenge to Euron Greyjoy’s claim to the Iron Islands.”

“Leaving him may not be wise either,” Davos adds pointedly. Jon feels sick in his throat and turns to glare at Davos.

“He’s not a child to be minded,” Jon insists, “But he should join us either way. It’ll be to our own weakness, if he doesn’t.”

Daenerys, Jon sees out of the corner of his eye, is smiling at him. Theon’s eyes are still trained on Ghost.

“We must all attend this parlay, Lord Tyrion,” she says with a tight smile. “Regardless of what anything from our pasts may imply of our strength. Or our loyalties,” she adds pointedly.

Tyrion looks down, somewhat humbled. 

Theon doesn’t say anything at all.

As they’re dismissed, Jon stands and starts around the massive table toward Theon, but Theon takes a step back as he notices. Ghost stands between them, friendly and unaware, and Theon looks sourly at his feet.

“Theon, I’m —”

Daenerys appears at Theon’s side like blood magic, her hand raised as if she wants to rest it on Theon’s shoulder, but knowing better than to touch him. Jon looks at her, petty, but Daenerys takes no notice of him.

“I’m hoping you’re well enough now to speak with me, Lord Greyjoy,” she says with a warm smile. 

Jon expects Theon to excuse himself away, but instead he assents with a small nod.

“Of course, Your Grace,” he replies with a small bow of his head. His eyes scan the council members filing out of the room. He runs his hand through Ghost’s fur before giving him a gentle nudge toward Jon. “Take him, would you?”

There’s bite in his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago, sharp and dark. His eyes are like ice when they reach Jon’s face.

“Theon —” he starts weakly, but Theon has already looked away from him.

Davos is at his side, greeting Ghost with a friendly pat on the head. “Your Grace,” he whispers imploringly. He says nothing else, but Jon turns and follows him out of the room.

With the doors closed, Jon tries not to pace outside in the hall. At first he means to leave, but decides to wait, and ends up turning back in and forth in the corridor like some foolish pantomime of an expectant father awaiting his first child from the birthing bed. Davos, mercifully, does not laugh. Jon trusts Daenerys, more than ever after she came for them beyond the Wall, but he worries what she may ask of Theon that he would not otherwise admit. But then, Theon has been a member of her council for months now. They sailed all the way from Meereen together. Jon considers, for the first time, that perhaps Daenerys already knows everything. 

Davos stands a few feet away, regarding Jon’s turmoil in silence.

“Your Grace,” he starts gently after watching Jon agonize for a few minutes. “Now, perhaps it’s not my place to say, but you and the Lord Greyjoy seemed to have —” he hesitates, and Jon feels an embarrassed twinge at what he might say. “— mended your earlier differences,” he settles.

Jon chews on the inside of his mouth. “He saved my sister’s life from Ramsay Bolton.”

“Aye,” Davos says, curiously, a hint of a smirk on his face. “I recall you mentioning it to him, when you first contemplated killing him.”

It’s humiliating, looking at Davos. Instead Jon stares at the doors. “He’d been my father’s ward, when we were children. We grew up together at Winterfell. We were both… outsiders, when we were young.”

“I see,” Davos replies. “So then I assume he did something to fall out of your House’s favour.”

Jon’s skin feels tight at the back of his neck. He looks at Davos then. “A long time ago.”

Davos nods sagely. “Forgive me if it’s too bold to say, Your Grace, but I like to think I’ve acquired some wisdom in my old age. And in my experience, as one gets older, you tend to forgive what you can of those who will keep fighting alongside you. Something I learned from my time as a smuggler is that you’re never too powerful to turn away free help.”

Jon’s eyes dart back to the door. “No, I — I agree. At any rate, he paid for his crimes more than I — ” There’s an odd sort of scratch at the back of Jon’s throat as he tries to describe it. He coughs. “More than he should have. More than any law in any land would say is fair.”

There’s silence, for a moment, until Davos ventures hesitantly, “Forgiveness can be wise, Your Grace, but, if I may, perhaps it would also be wise that you be careful to avoid further... complications of what —” 

“That’s enough, Ser Davos.”

“My apologies, Your Grace.”

It’s unfair for Jon to lose his temper. He drops his chin, chews nervously at his lip. No doubt Davos is thinking of Stannis, and the all mistakes he’s already been forced to witness. Jon understands his misgivings. If Jon is honest with himself, he wishes he shared them. He looks at Davos and gives him an apologetic nod.

“I don’t — Apologies, Ser Davos. You only mean to advise me, I understand.”

“No harm done, Your Grace.” Davos gives him a smile.

Jon looks back to the doors. It feels like hours before Davos speaks again.

“The lad is very fond of you.”

Jon scoffs. “No,” he says, feeling Ghost bump his snout against his hip. “He’s really not.”

Something in his voice is telling, and Davos falls silent. For a long time neither of them speak. Jon takes a long breath. How long have Theon and Daenerys been speaking? He runs a hand through his hair, adjusting the tie at the back of his head, and Davos finally speaks again.

“He doesn’t have to need you for everything in order to be fond of you, Your Grace.”

Jon looks back at him, a little startled, but Davos is only smiling. Jon feels a lump of tension in his chest at the look on his face. He’s still wary of southerners, when it comes to these matters, keenly aware of the way their gods regard the things Jon and Theon may be doing. He used to worry what would have happened if Lady Catelyn were to ever to find them out, when they were young. Jon has never understood the point of shaming such foolishness. The old gods never had concerns with such minor things. He had never bothered to ask Theon how the Drowned God may have considered their actions, but it was clear Theon had been unconcerned, either way.

“I’m not —” Jon starts, but he’s not sure how to finish the sentence. 

Abruptly, he remembers in his youth, telling himself every night they laid together that he did not care for Theon Greyjoy. It had been true at the time, to the point where he never had to question it. He glances back at the doors and considers, briefly, if it is still true.

Davos waits for him to finish speaking. After some time, Jon decides, “I had not expected him to be here. Truly, I have not seen him in years. But Theon is all I have of my home, now. With my father’s trueborn children back in Winterfell —”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Davos says with an understanding grin. “I hadn’t meant — my apologies, Your Grace, I only wish to make sure your mind is clear for the great many tasks that lie ahead, not to imply anything more. I do not disapprove, and it’s none of my concern. You care fiercely for your men. All of us. I only mean to say that I hope such things don’t result in more trouble than we’re worth.”

Still skeptical, Jon nods. In all the time Jon has known him, Davos has only seemed mildly ambivalent toward the strict, prescriptive southern gods, but Jon still feels guarded, protective. Jon doesn’t need half the castle gossiping about him and Theon, especially now.

“Thank you, Ser Davos,” Jon tells him with a small smile, “but I don’t believe I am mistaken of the worth of any man still at my side.”

At that, Davos seems rather proud.

When the doors swing open at last, Theon seems composed. He bows gently when he bids Daenerys farewell, and she smiles kindly at him. Jon watches, perplexed, but the moment Theon turns away from her, he walks straight past Jon with his head down.

Jon and Davos watch him go. Ghost gets to his feet and follows, trotting silently behind him. Jon looks back at Daenerys.

“Will — will that be all, Your Grace?”

Nodding, Daenerys watches after Theon as he disappears down the hall. “He’ll need looking after for a time,” she says with a hint of worry in her voice, “but he’s not completely lost to despair, and he’s stronger than he believes himself to be.” 

She meets Jon’s eyes, and for an instant Jon thinks she may know — that Theon told her, perhaps the Unsullied or Dothraki who saw them together days ago have said something. That perhaps, she just knows — seeing straight through Jon to a truth he can barely keep quiet. Jon holds his breath.

“You two were reared together as children, he tells me. I’ll ask you to keep an eye on him, if you would,” she tells Jon gently, “but not too closely. Smothering him would do more harm than good, I believe. As you say, he’s heir of the Iron Islands, not a child. We’ll need him in King’s Landing, whole and in his right mind.”

Feeling scorned, Jon nods. Daenerys bids him farewell and returns to the Chamber. When he turns to follow after Theon, Davos is already gone.

He finds Theon down on the southern shore, seated on a smooth beach rock, watching Ghost sneak up curiously on a flock of unconcerned gulls. He’s smiling until he sees Jon, when his face falls and he looks away. Jon is almost sure he would get up and leave if he weren’t sure Ghost would follow him if he tried.

He’s still some yards away from Theon when he stops walking toward him. Theon does not speak first. After some silence, Theon reaches down from where he’s perched on his stone to pluck a shell from the sand. He looks it over pointedly, avoiding Jon’s face.

“Are you angry with me?” Jon asks finally.

At that, Theon blinks. He looks up from his hands and squints. “Am I — what?”

“For not —” Jon swallows, a bitter tang in his mouth. He hates this. “For not doing what you wanted, last night. You seem resentful that I wouldn’t do what you asked.”

Theon’s jaw works, tense against his teeth. He looks back down at his hands. He doesn’t say anything, and Jon’s heart feels heavy in his chest. The breaking waves fills the chilly silence.

“I’m sorry,” Jon offers quietly, “I — I just can’t —”

“Gods, stop.”

Jon falls silent, but Theon still won’t look at him.

“Enough. I can’t — I can’t bear to have you be sorry over this as well. Just stop.” 

Jon doesn’t have anything to say to that. Theon tosses the shell into the waves. 

“You’ve always been so infuriatingly righteous,” Theon says at last. “Do you realize that? Even Robb used to complain about it.”

Jon can’t help but smirk, but Theon isn’t smiling. He still isn’t even looking in Jon’s direction. 

“Used to say you were so honourable and true even your father got sick of it at times. Even when we were young, you were always so serious. This dour little child, you were. I can still remember your face, a stern little scowl under a mop of black hair. Never laughed at the dirty jokes or got into trouble. It’s like you were born that way. When you left for the Wall to swear yourself brothers with a bunch of thieves and rapists —” Jon frowns, defensive, but doesn’t interrupt. “— Robb said to me, ‘Only our Jon Snow would choose such a hardship without being faced with a worse option’.”

It startles Jon, to realize they spoke of him after he traveled north. He’d assumed, as he left, that life for the Starks would continue on as it would have if he’d never existed. An annoying thorn finally excised. He doesn’t say it, but the question burns into his tongue: _And what did you say of me when I left?_

Theon drags his glove across his face, and Jon watches with a sigh. He’s not sure what to say.

After a long silence, he tries, “I’m sorry.”

Surprisingly, it makes Theon laugh. It sounds almost genuine, even though he isn’t smiling when it fades. “For being noble?”

“I suppose.” Jon shrugs.

Theon sighs. He kicks another shell from the muddy sand. “Only our Jon Snow,” he mutters to himself.

It causes something light and warm to catch in Jon’s chest. Embarrassed, he glances down at his feet. 

“What Queen Daenerys spoke about with you —” he starts, but falters when he sees the way Theon’s back goes tense. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I won’t.”

Jon nods. “I’m sorry, if she… I don’t understand why it had to be alone.”

“I don’t mind,” Theon insists, voice low. “She’s been kind to me, even after I lost her our fleet, and — and my sister. I wasn’t afraid. I had no reason to be.” 

It’s comforting to hear, but is still Jon concerned, remembering the way he pressed against Jon every time another person would be in the room with them. Theon looks up at him, reading his face. 

“You don’t have to protect me from everything just because you pity me.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Jon bristles. 

Theon’s eyes fall back to his hands, unconvinced.

Guilty, Jon asks, “Would you like me to leave you alone?”

“No.”

Jon moves carefully, ready for Theon to keep him from getting much closer. When he sits on a rock beside Theon, he notices Theon is staring.

“So then what _are_ you doing, Jon?”

It’s such an obvious question, and Jon hasn’t the slightest answer. He remembers again, his thought in the hall outside the Chamber. Here and now, sitting in front of him in the daylight, Jon feels foolish for wondering. Theon is still waiting for an answer.

“I’m preparing for a war.”

Theon clicks his tongue against his teeth. He seems uncommonly frustrated. The dragons soar overhead, and Theon looks up at them. Ghost lopes up to sit at Jon and Theon’s feet, but Theon’s eyes watch the dragons unblinkingly. 

“They fly lower,” Theon says finally. “Since coming back. Since they’ve lost the third. Have you noticed?”

Jon hadn’t. He’s hesitant to believe it, as he looks up to watch them circle the water. He’s not sure how to respond.

“It’s strange to watch something like that grieve,” Theon confides.

“I’m still not used to them as it is,” Jon admits, “I’m not sure I’ll ever know them well enough for such observations. Like something out of a story.”

Theon doesn’t look at him. “They’re right, aren’t they? About me.”

Jon doesn’t follow, and for a moment, he thinks Theon means the dragons. “Who is?”

“The Spider and the Imp.” He’s still watching the dragons, as if he’s speaking to them, instead. “They called me a weak link, and perhaps they’re right. I shouldn’t go to King’s Landing.”

“The Queen says you should, so you should.”

Theon frowns, finally looking away from the dragons banking off the horizon, instead watching Ghost nose at the sand. “Yara was the one who made the deal with Queen Daenerys. I hardly said a word to her, then, in Meereen. I could barely stand to be there. It was Yara’s plan, Yara’s fleet, Yara’s men. I’m not what she wants. I’m not what any of them want.”

Jon doesn’t say anything. 

“I can’t rule the Islands. I can’t help Queen Daenerys. What use am I, at this parlay?” His eyes meet Jon’s then.

“As the Queen said,” Jon says softly. “And I said it in the Chamber. We present a unified front, a man from every kingdom. Against Cersei, against your uncle. We need you.”

Theon sighs. “You need Yara.”

“We have you,” Jon says. It sounds harsher than he wants it to, but Theon only nods. It’s quiet between them for a long time, and Theon reaches down to pet Ghost’s fur.

“You need Yara,” he repeats, but his voice is quiet this time, to himself. 

Jon nods.

He does this often now. Theon had never spoke of Yara when they grew up in Winterfell, but now he brings her up at every turn, only to freeze and fall silent when he remembers where she is. Jon has tried to ask him multiple times since he’s been back what happened when Euron’s fleet attacked them, but Theon only gets the sickeningly distant look on his face and never gives him an answer. Jon has learned to stop asking.

“We’ll get her back, I swear it.” 

Theon doesn’t say anything back.

He doesn’t see much of Theon after they break bread in the dining hall. Theon never stays long, and he prefers to sit at the beach and watch the sea and spiraling dragons fishing off the cliffs. Ghost doesn’t leave his side, so Jon decides it’s best not to crowd him. He looks out the southern windows now and again to see him seated on the rocks, Ghost planted beside him. Jon tells himself the time alone will do Theon well.

The sun is starting to light the waves up like diamonds. Light is minimal inside the castle, but the large open window facing over the cliffs of the beach is bright with the reflection of the water, and warm with the remnants of the sun’s heat. When Jon looks out the window, he can see Theon is still down on the beach, toying with Ghost with a large dead crab. Jon smiles down at the scene, and doesn’t notice Jorah Mormont approach the open window from behind him. When Jorah clears his throat, Jon jumps.

Jorah smiles, a tad sheepish. “Sorry, my lord. I hadn’t meant to startle you.” He looks out the window to see what Jon is watching. Jon feels humiliation crawl up his neck at being discovered, but Jorah only smiles. 

“He’s probably the only man on this island other than you who doesn’t fear that beast,” he says fondly.

“The Queen has _dragons,_ ” Jon reminds him. Jorah’s smile widens.

“Aye, the Queen is not a man, and the rest of us are terrified of her children, as well. I’ve known them since they were hatchlings the size of cats, and I still don’t believe it when I seem them sometimes.”

Jon has nothing to say to that. He’s not so sure he’s afraid of the dragons any longer, either, but he’s certainly not used to them. He sees them soaring over the ocean, hears them crying. He can’t hear Ghost, but sees his mouth snapping, playful and soft, at the crab Theon is holding out to him.

“He’s a tender boy,” Jorah says suddenly.

Jon frowns. “He’s iron and salt.”

Jorah smiles kindly. “Aye, he comes from as much. As I come from a proud northern house. But I’ve grown away from my family’s words, perhaps as has he.”

For some reason, it offends Jon that this man who knows nothing of Theon has the same worries for him that Jon does. “You were exiled, Ser Jorah.”

Jorah doesn’t look away from Theon on the beach below. “And he was taken ward. I remember the day. I saw with my own eyes at the Siege of Pyke. Such a soft child, even then.”

Jon looks down at Theon, defensive, but Jorah’s tone is not cruel or judgemental. 

“To be tender is not a shameful thing, Lord Snow. From what I’ve heard, you know that better than most.” When Jon looks at him, Jorah adds, “It’s good of you to have convinced us to take him to King’s Landing.” 

It’s the kindest thing Jorah has said to him. Jon smiles, hesitant. 

“He looks better,” Jorah continues, “than he had. Livelier. Found something to fight for.”

Embarrassment burns the back of Jon’s neck again. “His — his sister, taken hostage by their uncle.”

Jorah nods sagely. “Aye. That as well, I suppose.”

Jon stares at him. Jorah only smiles as he walks away. 

Jon feels exposed, standing at the window, and walks the other direction, toward his room.

It’s dusk when Jon’s chamber door unlatches and creeps open. He’d been so sure Theon wouldn’t feel the need to come to him tonight that when he shuffles quietly inside, Jon lunges for him, pinning him hard against the door in a kiss. Theon jolts, his head slamming back against the hard black ironwood. 

“Jon —!”

His voice is tense, muffled against Jon’s mouth, but his hands fall welcoming on Jon’s waist, letting Jon press him hard into the door. When he nips at Theon’s neck, Theon’s spine melts in his body, and Jon’s forced to hold him up by his shoulders. 

“Jon, gods, are you drunk?”

It’d be easy to have that excuse. Theon doesn’t sound like he’d mind it, voice fluttering to nothing in Jon’s ear. The real reason feels sinister, unworthy. He shouldn’t feel envy, the counsel he takes with Daenerys or time he spends alone. He’s proud to see Theon pull himself upright, that he no longer needs Jon as a crutch, but it doesn’t mean he wants Theon to sleep in his own bed at night. He doesn’t have to need Jon, but Jon still hopes for Theon to want him.

“Not drunk,” he admits, Theon’s face tucked down into Jon’s neck. “Just wanted — wanted to… is it all right?” he asks, realizing himself as he pushes Theon’s face back to meet his eyes. “To take you like this?”

For a long moment, Theon gapes at him. Jon begins to think he must have said something wrong, but suddenly, Theon’s face cracks into a smile, and he laughs.

It’s the first time Jon’s heard it sound the same, that sharp, biting laugh from their years in Winterfell. Jon’s not sure he’s ever heard another sound that’s made him feel so light.

“Is this because I called you infuriatingly righteous?”

“Partly,” Jon assumes aloud. He looks down at his waist to tug Theon’s gloves from his hands. “Mostly I just want to learn what it feels like.”

Something tender passes over Theon’s face, oddly reminiscent. Jon suddenly feels fifteen again, splayed under Theon as he purred teasing words in his ear. For a split second, Jon lets himself wish it could still be that way. Then he stands on his toes and kisses the look off Theon’s face. 

“I won’t hit you,” Jon says as he breaks the kiss, “But this — I’ll do this.”

Dumbstruck, Theon nods. 

He stands as Jon turns away from him to gather the lamp oil from the windowsill, but hastily starts to remove his clothes when Jon starts back. Jon watches, and wordlessly holds out his hand to give Theon balance as he kicks out of his pants.

Jon kisses him again before Theon can shirk from his nudity. He draws the waist of his pants slack and lets them fall slightly from his hips. He uses his other hand to grab a fistful of Theon’s hair. He waits until Theon melts into the kiss, spine going slack, before he drops his hold on Theon’s curls and pulls away to slick his fingers. Jon is so focused on what he’s doing that he startles when Theon bows to continue the kiss. 

It’s delicate and careful, but hungry, holding the sides of Jon’s face. He whimpers as Jon slides a finger into him, needy against Jon’s mouth. His hands are shaking, and it occurs to Jon for the first time just how much stronger he is than Theon now. Heart pounding, he pins Theon back against the door, pressed so close to him he can feel Theon’s heart fluttering against his own. 

Careful to still hold Theon flat against the door, Jon slicks himself with the lamp oil before letting it fall from his hand with a clatter onto the floor. 

As he pulls Theon back into a kiss, he growls against his mouth, “Legs around me.”

With a quiet grunt at the effort, Theon does as he’s told, folding his long pale legs tight around Jon’s hips. Jon hoists him back against the door, grabbing hold of his thighs and dragging Theon onto him. Breath heavy, Theon’s head rolls back, and Jon watches the long curve of his neck as he swallows and inhales. Slowly, Jon rolls his hips, testing. The angle is far more intense and he can’t know how it is for Theon.

“Do —” Jon feels his face burn as he stumbles over the question, “Do you like it? Can you feel anything?”

Theon’s eyes take a moment to find Jon’s face, to focus on him. His mouth twitches, a hesitant little smirk. He doesn’t answer right away, tilting Jon’s face up to kiss him again. It’s eerie, how quiet Theon is. Even when he nods, it doesn’t quite feel like an answer. 

Anxiously, Jon breaks the kiss into smaller ones against Theon’s mouth. “I’ll stop if you — we can — we can go to the bed.”

“No.” Theon shakes his head, trying to hold Jon’s face still. “Don’t stop.”

Nodding, Jon starts to move again, rolling his hips experimentally. Theon throws his head back again, and Jon smiles at him.

“Like that?”

Theon nods, eyes sliding shut. “Like —” 

His voice cuts off when Jon grinds his hips forward again, and his back bows out from the door with a gasp. Jon presses him back, watching his face.

Entranced, Jon kisses his throat. His mouth finds scars, faded ridges carved into his skin, and Theon’s breath catches hard behind his teeth. Ducking his head to meet Jon’s mouth again, his shaking hands slide back to cradle his head.

Theon breaks the kiss, just for a breath, and whispers, “Jon —”

He’s panting against Jon’s mouth, his legs trembling. Jon is lightheaded, surrounded by him. The smell of him, the touch of his skin, the quiet cadence of his breathing. He holds Theon by the hips and pushes into him, but the angle makes Jon’s head spin, and he can’t keep a rhythm.

“Jon,” Theon groans, voice dragging. 

He’s beginning to sag in Jon’s arms, and Jon slams him back against the door, swallowing the gasp from his mouth. Theon’s hands tear at the knot in his hair, clumsy and shaking, until Jon feels the band release, and his hair falls unruly down the back of his neck. Theon’s mangled hands fist in his hair, holding him close as he breathes kisses into Jon’s mouth. He’s so gentle and soft, whining helplessly against Jon’s lips, fingers tangled in his curls. Jon’s hips work until Theon is keening. His legs lose their grip, slipping down Jon’s waist, but Jon grabs Theon by the thighs and hoists him back up, ramming him against the door to keep him in place. Groaning, Theon’s head knocks against the ironwood. Hoisted up on Jon’s waist like this he hovers above Jon, but even as Jon has to look up to meet his eyes, Theon still feels so impossibly small. He drops one of his legs and pulls Theon down by his hair, kissing the breath out of him. He feels salt in the kiss, but Theon’s shoulders aren’t trembling as they do when he’s weeping. Jon pulls away to look at him, but Theon’s eyes are dark and wide, pinned to Jon’s face.

“H — _harder._ ” 

His voice barely comes out a rasp, not the monotonic order he’d snapped out before. He’s pleading, breathless and burning, and Jon throws himself forward, rocking Theon back against the door until he’s babbling, voice heavy and thick as he says Jon’s name over and over, until it sounds like nothing. The bones appear to seep from Theon’s body, until he’s almost entirely limp, half-curled over Jon and half pinned to the door. His hands seem to be all he has control over any longer, still clamped tight in Jon’s hair as he pants needy and faded against Jon’s neck.

Jon’s lungs are on fire, can’t seem to catch a breath, but he can’t stop. His spine is drawn tight and his hips move on their own, pounding Theon back against the door so loudly half the castle must hear them by now. Theon’s shaking, and Jon feels his tongue drag over the side of his neck, mindless and compulsory.

Jon’s orgasm wracks his body so abruptly that it knocks the wind from him. He releases Theon’s hair to slam a hand against the door, keeping them up. His hips are still jerking when Theon suddenly cries out, the hands in Jon’s hair pulling so tight he thinks Theon might rip it from the roots.

Panting, he tries to shake the fog from his head. “Theon —?”

Theon is trembling, gaping down at his lap, and Jon follows his eyes. Between them, something sticky and clear is drying hot on Theon’s groin. Jon looks up, concerned, but Theon is still staring. Hesitantly, Jon pulls his hand from the door to touch Theon’s face. He waits until he looks up, eyes dazed and bright.

“Are you — Theon, are you all right?” 

Words don’t come. He looks back down and nods. He lets Jon shift out of him, but when Jon tries to let him to his feet, it bursts from his mouth: “No —!” He flings his arms tight around Jon’s neck, burying into him. “No,” he repeats, voice soft. “Just — just please —”

Unsteady on his feet, Jon leans him back against the door, one hand hoisting Theon at the hips and the other wrapped comfortingly around his back. Jon’s legs are screaming, but he won’t let go. Theon’s breath is coming in short gasps against Jon’s neck, and he waits. As he holds him, something dark and possessive stirs at the base of Jon’s spine. No one else will touch him, Jon thinks wildly. He’ll kill anyone else who tries, leave them to a worse fate than the one they’d left even for Ramsay Bolton.

He shakes the thought from his head before it can leave his mouth. 

“I’m going to set you down on the bed,” he tells Theon finally. “Get us both — washed up. All right?”

Theon nods, but he’s still curled tight around Jon. It’s a little effort to walk them to the bed, but Theon releases him easily as Jon seats him on the furs. Jon takes a linen to the wash basin, water long gone cold, and kneels beside the bed to wipe carefully at Theon’s skin.

Silently, Theon watches. When he shivers at the cold as Jon pulls the linen over his thigh, Jon bows his head and places a kiss on his damp skin. He doesn’t realize how strange it must seem to Theon that Jon is kneeling between his thighs until he feels Theon run his gnarled hand through Jon’s hair.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Jon’s not sure if he means to repeat himself, but it doesn’t matter. Jon has the same answer. “I like to.”

There are bruises already purpling over Theon’s papery thighs. Jon frowns, running his hand over them apologetically. When he looks back up at Theon, his eyes are on the bruises, too. 

“Don’t look so pouty, now,” Theon tells him, prodding a finger against the bruise on his leg. “I missed these sorts of marks, anyway.”

It reminds Jon of Ygritte, the first time he’d left bruises on her pale freckled skin after they’d laid together under a broad stone fence. He’d panicked, mortified, after all the things his father had said about never harming a woman, he was sure one of the other wildlings would have his head if she didn’t take it first herself. But Ygritte had only laughed openly at his helpless apologies. _“There’s no doing it right without leaving the proof behind, Jon Snow.”_

The memory makes him smile, despite himself. When he looks up, Theon is still staring at one of the bruises on his leg, as if waiting for it to change into something else.

“Theon?”

He looks up at his name, pulled back from wherever he’d been. Before Jon can ask if he’s all right, Theon’s mouth twitches into a smirk. “Learned a few things since last time, have you?”

Jon tries to school his expression, but he can feel the heat in his cheeks. He goes back to wiping Theon’s legs without answering.

“Gods, you _have._ Never thought the day would come I’d see Jon Snow become an oathbreaker.”

Jon snorts. “You had nothing to say of it when it was just with you.”

“You make no oaths of men at the Wall,” Theon scoffs, then he squints. “Was it with one of your brothers in black, then?”

“No,” Jon says defensively, unsure why the accusation makes him shy. 

He turns his attention to cleaning himself to avoid meeting Theon’s eyes. Even as humiliating as the topic is, it sends a warm spark through Jon’s skin to see him smiling, eyes pinned to Jon almost excitedly. 

Ducking his head, Jon admits, “It was a free folk girl.”

“A _wildling,_ ” Theon gapes, delighted. “The honourable and true Jon Snow broke his vow to the Night’s Watch to fuck a wildling girl.” Jon looks at his hands, ignoring the stab of guilt in his side. Her death still stings. “Gods, Robb would never believe such a thing.”

Mention of Robb stings as well, but differently. A dull ache, softened by the still-stunned look on Theon’s face. Jon watches him with an easy smile, and Theon cocks his head. 

“You’re so much like him, now,” he admits bluntly. Jon blinks.

“Robb?”

Theon nods. “He would be proud of you.”

His voice is tense, when he says it — hoarse and dry. Not sure what to say, Jon looks back at his hands. Theon has never spoken this way to him before. When they were children they both competed for Robb’s attention. Jon never thought that Theon considered he and his brother comparable. Unable to help himself, Jon wonders what that means, for what they’re doing.

“I’m glad, though. That you ended up liking girls, too, I mean,” Theon adds, thoughtful. “It’s— it just makes everything easier, sometimes, the way the world is.”

It had never concerned Jon, really, being a bastard, and even less so when he left Winterfell for the Wall. He considers it, now, having heirs, a family line. “Nothing’s easy about the world anymore.”

“Was she the only one?”

Jon nods, feeling abruptly maudlin. “Her, and you.”

Theon snorts. “I don’t count.”

Jon opens his mouth to argue, but hesitates at the easy way Theon falls back into Jon’s furs. It must be what he wants, Jon realizes. To not count. Unimportant, like it had been when they were young. Jon snaps his jaw shut and crawls into bed beside him. As he watches Theon fall asleep, Jon wonders if Theon ever got to be with Robb, before they parted for the last time. He’ll never ask such a thing, but he remembers Theon sobbing in his arms the night before for the Wall, and wonders.

The moon shines unnaturally bright through the window, casting Theon in silver light as his chest rises and falls with even breath. Jon stares at him, able to squint now and see the boy he’d been before, the one who came stumbling drunk into Jon’s bedchamber any time he wanted Robb. Jon tries to remember what it felt like, then, but the memories are too faded. Letters too old to read. All that’s left for Jon now is this, Theon curled like a bow with his back pressed to Jon’s side.

Carefully, Jon pulls his fingers through Theon’s hair. Touching him as he slept used to jerk him awake as if he’d been burned, but he doesn’t even twitch, now. He sleeps deeper, pressed against Jon’s skin. It leaves Jon to wonder what will become of him, at the end of all of this, after King's Landing. He doesn’t plan on dying, plans even less for Theon’s death. But they can’t remain this way. Not when Jon has duty to the North, and Theon has duty to Yara. Jon doesn’t want to, but worries what would become of Theon on the Iron Islands, the way he is now. He had always been too tender, Jon realizes, even before, as the young boy who followed Robb like a shadow. He was never meant for such a hard place. Now, he must be terrified to return.

“I say that you do,” Jon admits to no one.


	4. Chapter 4

Jon wakes to the weak predawn light barely breaking through his window, with his face pressed into Theon’s throat. The gentle flutter of his pulse thrums against Jon’s skin, and he presses a kiss to it before he can think not to. Theon doesn’t stir until Jon pulls him closer, twisting slightly in Jon’s grip with an unconscious huff. Jon doesn’t want to wake him. It’s so early he doubts anyone else in the castle is awake. He opens his eyes to see the steady rise and fall of Theon’s sunken chest, the scars scattered over his skin. There’s a thick, jagged line over Theon’s shoulder, stretching just under where Jon’s face is rested against Theon’s neck. Holding his breath in his chest, Jon presses his lips to it, gentle and quick. 

The air doesn’t move, and the world feels unclear. Distant, as if Jon were watching it through a window. He remembers feeling this way after his heart first beat again; as if none of it was real. 

Theon whimpers in his sleep, and Jon presses a hand to his chest. He waits until Theon falls silent before his eyes slide shut and sleep takes him again.

When dawn comes at last and Jon wakes again, he can feel Theon’s eyes on him. He blinks his eyes open slowly, his body still fighting to drag him back to unconsciousness. 

Theon is scrutinizing him, his mouth turned down. 

Jon blinks the last of sleep from his eyes. Clearing his throat, he asks innocently, “What is it?”

“I’m fucking sore, is what,” Theon snaps without any real venom.

Jon laughs without meaning to, and Theon clicks his tongue in frustration.

“Never imagined that little Jon Snow would ever be stronger than me,” he says with a sigh. He rolls onto his side with a groan, stretching his legs before eyeing his clothes discarded on the other side of the room. “All that time labouring at the Wall, you’re stronger than even Robb, by now.”

That stuns him, and Jon isn’t sure what to say, watching Theon stumble to his feet in silence.

Finally he mutters, “Robb and I were always about the same, in drills, when we were younger.”

Theon’s fingers trip over the laces of his clothes, and he laughs. “No, you weren’t.” He looks up then, eyes lit up like they used to be. “He never would admit it, but he would let you win time and again, like he did with me.”

Jon stares at him. If he didn’t know better, he would almost think that Theon has forgotten Robb is dead, the way he’s talking. Theon is putting on his gloves by the time Jon starts getting dressed as well. He’s silent as he gets to his feet, and Theon doesn’t say anything else.

Breakfast is quiet, at first. They sit alone at a table away from the other men eating in the large hall. Neither of them say anything to each other until Theon, tearing distractedly at the fruits on his plate, mutters, “You don’t like it when I speak of him, either.”

Jon doesn’t look up. He waits to swallow his mouthful before asking, “Who?”

“Robb. You’re still — you still hate me for it.”

That makes Jon pause. He can feel Theon’s eyes on him. “I — no. I don’t like it.” 

He means to add that he doesn’t hate Theon any longer, either, but the words stick in his throat. It sounds too close to a total forgiveness that he’s not ready to give. 

Theon nods, understanding, and sets his fork down. He likes to have these discussions during meals, Jon’s noticed, an excuse to leave food uneaten. 

“It’s still strange,” Theon mumbles, “knowing there’s nothing after all this. I never really gave any of it any thought, before, but knowing there’s only— nothing. No seven hells, no watery halls. I’ll never see him again. I can never — I can never apologize to him.”

Jon watches him. Theon seems more stable than he had the first time they discussed this, but he’s learned not to take his eyes off Theon when he ruminates about the past. Ser Jorah had called him tender, Daenerys had said he was strong. Jon’s not sure which of them is right.

“He’ll never know, now. I can never tell him that I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill his little brothers,” Theon adds after a while. “I… he hated me, and he’ll never… he’ll never not hate me, now.”

“No,” Jon says gently, “but you _didn’t_ kill his brothers. And you’re with us now. You’re here now.”

Theon looks at him then. He smiles, faint and short. Jon can tell, the way Theon’s eyes dart over him, that he’s remembering what Jon told him that night. _You still have time._

They eat in silence for a while, but speaking of Robb is like a weight on Jon’s shoulders. He watches Theon drop some scraps to Ghost at his feet. His skin is less sallow than it had been when Jon left to go beyond the Wall. The darkness under his eyes has faded. 

He’s wondered all this time, and looking at him now, Jon thinks it may be possible to ask.

“Theon?”

Theon looks up sheepishly, as if Jon will reprimand him for sneaking his food to Ghost like a child. 

Jon just shakes his head. “Why — why did you do it? Why did you turn on them? The Starks were only ever kind to you. Robb loved you. Why did you betray us?”

Kicking the scraps of bread under the table, Theon drops his eyes back to Ghost. “Ramsay asked me that, too.”

Jon feels the blood leave his face, but Theon only watches Ghost snap happily at the food on the floor. 

He doesn’t look up. “At the time, I told him what I thought he’d wanted to hear. That I hated the Starks. That I hated them for making me a hostage. That I hated Robb for calling himself king. That I wanted to bring honor to my father, to my House, to my people.”

He’s quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Jon doesn’t interrupt.

“But I hated my father,” Theon chokes. “I hated him for giving me away, I hated him for resenting me when I came back.” 

He looks up finally, and Jon sees tears in the corners of his eyes. He swallows hard and turns his head away, to keep Jon from seeing them. Jon pretends he doesn’t.

“I never wanted to honor him. I wanted — I wanted to prove… that I didn’t need him. I didn’t need him, and I didn’t need the damned Starks, who raised me in his stead. I _tried_ to. I wanted to — I wanted to hate all of you, so much.” He shakes his head. “Little Bran, he asked me…” he gasps, swallowing down a sob, and Jon waits for him to finish. But when he speaks again, it’s not about what Bran had asked him. “I was fucking stupid. And so _weak._ ” 

Jon chews on his lip. Theon shakes his head again, ashamed. 

“I never wanted — even as I did the things I did… it was as if I was watching myself from a distance, begging myself to stop.” Before Jon can respond, Theon adds, “It’s no excuse for what I’ve done. I know that. I did those things all the same. And I don’t — I don’t want to be forgiven. For any of it.”

The dining hall seems to have fallen silent around them. The scores of people around them blend to nothing and disappear. When Theon blinks, tears stream down his face. He says nothing else, and his back is ramrod straight. He doesn’t reach for Jon, he doesn’t cry out, he doesn’t even look at him. Jon stifles the urge to pet his hair.

“I am sorry,” Theon says at last. “I’d give — anything, to take it back. I’d tried to write Robb, after I arrived in Pyke, after I learned my father’s intentions to raid the North. I should have never… I should have sent it. A day has yet to go by that I haven’t thought how different it would be if I had just sent it.”

Jon nods. “I know,” he says, even though this is the first he’s hearing of a letter. 

He knows Theon is sorry. He knows Theon would give his life to take it back. It’s enough. He finally gives in and squeezes the back of Theon’s neck. 

“I know,” he says again, because it seems to relax him.

As they leave the dining hall, Theon is watching him with a soft smile. It’s strange, after what they’d spoken of during breakfast, so Jon questions, “What is it?”

“I told you last night that you and Robb were similar, now.”

Jon nods stiffly. “I’m not sure I liked that, either,” he admits.

Theon’s smile fades. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Shouldn’t compare you two like that. I was wrong, anyway.”

Jon squints at him. “What?”

“You’re — different. Always were. The way he commanded… how he would’ve ruled, it would’ve been different.”

“Better, I’m sure,” Jon grumbles. He doesn’t like where this is going.

“No,” Theon answers. “No, that’s not it. I think you might — you might make a better lord, now. A better king. I think he may have even known it, the way he always talked about you. Always about your honor and your honesty, he would always sound a little jealous. Proud.”

“I was at the Wall by the time he was king,” Jon reminds him. “What kind of king did he think I would make?”

Theon shrugs. “You were a bastard before that, but Robb never seemed to think it would stop you. And look at you now. He was right.”

Jon isn’t sure anymore how he feels of Theon speaking of Robb, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t speak of him again.

At dinner Theon asks if there’s been any further word of the Stark children.

“No,” Jon admits, “But Sansa’s quite busy as Warden of the North, I’d expect.”

“Sansa?” Theon stops toying with a crust of bread, looking up at Jon, his eyes wide.

Jon nods, and Theon smiles. 

He seems proud. Jon sees it, then, a flicker of the boy who would have called himself her brother. He picks silently at his food as he listens to Jon talk about what he knows from the letter, of Bran and of Arya. That Bran arrived with the daughter of Howland Reed, and Arya snuck past disbelieving guards to get back into her home. He smiles as Jon talks. For the first time since Jon has seen him at Dragonstone, Theon cleans his plate without throwing anything to Ghost.

In the evening, before nightfall, they walk Ghost out to the beach to chase at gulls, but Jon has run out of news, and their conversation falls silent. For a while, they only walk, with only the breaking surf and calling gulls accompanying them. 

Abruptly, Theon stops walking. He’s looking at his feet in the sand, and Jon knows what he’ll ask before he speaks. 

“What —” Theon swallows thickly. “What became of Ramsay?”

Jon studies his face, trying to judge if it will be too much for him to hear. He still has dreams of Theon jumping from the tower before Jon can stop him.

“He’s dead,” he admits bluntly.

Theon doesn’t look at all surprised. He nods, distant, a confirmation of something he already knew. Jon resists the urge to grab his hand. Ghost stops and whines, nearly silent. 

Theon looks up from the sound, quiet as it was, and his eyes meet Jon’s. “Was it you?”

Jon shakes his head. Words come out thick, hesitant. “It was Sansa. She locked him in the kennels until his own hounds ate him alive.” When Theon doesn’t react to that, Jon adds awkwardly, “I wasn’t there when it happened. She… she asked to be alone. I only saw…” The bloody remnants of a corpse, heavily fed upon, missing its face, blood pooled and coagulated in its open rib cage, the dogs fighting over the left arm. “I only saw after.”

For a long time, Theon doesn’t move or speak. It feels like an eternity before Jon watches a smile flicker over his face. 

“She’s always been so brave,” he says finally. “I’ve never known anyone as brave as her.” Jon smiles as well, but before he can speak, Theon adds, voice tight, “You told me that I saved her, but it’s not true. I would’ve died in those kennels if not for her.”

Jon’s face falls.

Theon stares blankly at his hands. “I would’ve died there, with him, in Winterfell. That’s what he would’ve wanted. For me to be with him.”

Jon doesn’t know what to say. He reaches for Theon, but doesn’t touch him. It reminds him of the way Daenerys shows him comfort. He drops his hand back to his side. Theon doesn’t seem to notice.

“I would’ve — I would’ve died for him, without her there.”

That isn’t what Jon is expecting. “What?”

Theon doesn’t look as if he understands what he’s said anymore than Jon has. “I would’ve — you would’ve had to kill me too, I think.” The look Theon gives his hands is confused, angry. “He was all I had, until Sansa came to Winterfell. Brought me back.”

“What are you saying?” Jon repeats, slower this time, sure he’s mishearing.

Theon only seems frustrated with himself. “I wouldn’t — I don’t think I would have let you. I didn’t — have anyone but him. And he wanted me to be with him. He was…” Theon chokes, a quiet gag at the back of his throat. “He was all I had.”

Sick crawls up Jon’s throat, but he keeps his jaw clenched, staring at him. “No,” he says, confused, “He’s — he’s the reason you —” Jon looks at Theon’s hands, at the way he holds them awkwardly in front of himself. All he can picture are the scars on Theon’s body beneath his leathers. “He kept you like a dog.”

Theon shakes his head, but he’s scowling. “No, no, that’s —”

“He kept you locked in those kennels,” Jon stresses, as if Theon has somehow forgotten. Resentment rises in him as if boiling under his skin. “How can you — how can you say that? That you would have died for him? How could you possibly say that _to me?_ ” 

Theon opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s just standing there, hands shaking. 

“What do you even mean by that? _Let me?_ If Sansa had not come to Winterfell, you would’ve stayed _loyal_ to him? You would’ve _fought_ me? You would have fought me to keep that beast _alive?_ ”

Theon drops his chin, staring at his feet. He grabs a handful of his hair, and Jon worries for an instant that it’ll rip it from his scalp again, but his heart is pounding in his ears and he can’t comprehend the idea of Theon trying to defend Ramsay. He tries to picture it, Theon standing between them in the ruined courtyard, but it makes his vision grey around the edges.

“After what he did to you? After what he did to my family? To Rickon — Theon, he killed Rickon. And you —” Jon glances back at the castle, toward the North Tower. After the way he’d spoken while they stood up there, Jon can’t understand what he’s saying now. “He shot an arrow through Rickon’s heart. And you — you would’ve defended him? How could you — _why?_ ”

“I don’t — I don’t know,” Theon says helplessly. “I wasn’t — I wasn’t Theon, then. I was — I was something else. He made me something else.”

Sansa had told Jon that. That Theon had insisted on another name. Something inhuman and pathetic. He can’t remember what it was. “What does that _mean?_ ” 

Theon is shaking. Jon is being cruel, he shouldn’t be speaking to him this way, he knows. He swallows against the furious lump in his throat. 

“What were you, then, Theon? What were you that you could defend Ramsay Bolton after all he did?”

“I —”

Theon can’t manage anything further before doubling over and vomiting at his feet.

Jon leaps back. “Theon —!”

It’s strange. He wants to go to him, to kneel beside him and hold his face, but he can’t move. Instead all he can do is watch as Theon shivers retching onto the sand. He’s frozen in place, Theon’s voice going over in his head. _“He was all I had.”_

It sounds no different, the way he’d said it, than how Theon talked of Robb. 

“I — I can’t breathe,” Theon manages, panting. Doubled over, arms wrapped around his sides, he gags into the sand. Then, his voice pitiful, barely a breath, he pleads, “Jon —”

It snaps Jon back, just as Theon sinks to his knees, rushing over to him. He’s at a loss of what to say, and Theon doesn’t try to speak again. He’s trembling, so hard that Jon can barely keep a hold on him as Jon drags him to his unsteady feet. Theon has stopped vomiting, his stomach empty, but all he can manage is dry heaving as they walk.

It’s hard to look at him. Jon’s stomach roils as he drags Theon back to the castle. His clumsy footing is only made worse by the pliant sand, and how hard he’s shaking. 

Jon’s ears are ringing. A metallic tang fills his mouth. His neck feels hot. _“He was all I had.”_

Sitting Theon on his own bed, there’s an anxious twinge in Jon’s gut. Theon is weeping openly now, though Jon isn’t quite sure why. It could be over Ramsay’s death, for all he understands. Theon is still gagging through his sobs. 

“Don’t — don’t leave me,” he finally begs, and Jon feels guilt like a weight in his chest. He can barely look at him, only hearing Theon’s words repeating in his mind. _“He was all I had.”_ All Jon wants is to leave him here, retire to his own room and bar the door. He’s never so desperately felt the need to be far away from him. But Theon only paws at him as if he can read Jon’s mind. “Please, not alone. I can’t — don’t leave me alone.”

“I’ll stay,” Jon says eventually, his voice dry. “I’m — I’m here, I’ll stay.”

As if feeling his hesitance, his disgust, Theon sobs again, fingers of his left hand digging hard into the boiled leather of Jon’s doublet. 

“I’m sorry,” he pleads, “I’m sorry, please, I don’t — I don’t —”

Theon can’t articulate what he means, and Jon doesn’t understand him. 

Resolute, Jon sits like a stone next to Theon on his bed, staring straight ahead into empty space as Theon shudders against him. He has nothing to say, too horrified to pretend he isn’t. He lets Theon sob until he tires himself out, slipping into exhaustion, and finally to sleep, against Jon’s side.

Jon feels wretched as he pulls away, tucking Theon into his furs. He should stay. He promised to stay. But he can't sleep, he can't think. Theon lies there, finally quiet in his sleep, and Jon can't stand to see him. Torn, he sits on the edge of Theon's bed, but his skin can't stop crawling. He can't stay here. He can't even stay still. His heart feels cold in his chest as he gets to his feet, closing the door behind him as he leaves. Ghost meets him at the door, massive and white in the dark hall, red eyes narrowed at Jon’s face. It makes him pause. The direwolf rarely comes inside the castle at night. Ghost makes no sound, only watches. Jon can’t even bear to look at his own direwolf and turns down the hall to sleep alone. He hears the heavy drop of Ghost laying down against Theon’s door, but doesn’t look back.

Jon lies awake for hours, staring blankly at the black volcanic stone of the ceiling. All that he can think of is Theon’s words, repeating in his head like a chant. _“He was all I had.”_


	5. Chapter 5

Jon sleeps poorly, and wakes early. 

Guilt-ridden, he tosses the covers from his bed and swings his legs off the edge. He contemplates sneaking back into Theon’s room while he’s still sleeping, but when he approaches Theon's door down the dim hall, Ghost is gone, no longer standing guard outside the doorway. Creaking the door open, Jon sees the hulking outline of Ghost curled on the flagstone floor, white fur lit up by the hint of rosy sunlight through the window. When he looks at Theon’s bed, he sees it’s empty, and swings the door open wildly.

Ghost lifts his head at the sound, and Jon sees Theon curled into the wolf’s side on the floor, hands griping weakly at the direwolf’s back. His face is turned away from Jon, pressed into Ghost’s neck, and Jon stands there, watching him sleep until he loses track of time.

He remembers days ago, watching him sleep in Jon’s bed with Ghost draped over him. It had been different then. Something softer. But now, all Jon can think is how Theon must’ve woken in the night, alone, and settled for Ghost when he was too frightened to go look for Jon. After what he said, it’s hard for Jon not to see the Theon who slept next to the hounds in the Dreadfort kennels. He’d admitted to preferring it. _It meant Ramsay hadn’t called for me._ But then why would Theon mourn him at all? 

As Jon watches, Ghost only stares back, red eyes watching, entirely still. The wolf almost seems disappointed with Jon. At a loss, Jon quietly pulls the door shut. 

He lingers outside the door for a moment until turning on his heel and heading toward the kitchens, hoping perhaps there’s something to settle his stomach.

He had expected to be alone — had desperately hoped it — but instead finds The Hound stacked at the end of one of the long tables, picking at a cold meat pie when Jon creeps into the kitchens. The Hound looks up and grunts in acknowledgement as Jon enters, but doesn’t bother to say anything. Looking over the leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, Jon chastizes himself for thinking this would help. Just seeing the food stocked along the tables makes him queasy.

He sits gingerly at the end of the same table The Hound is feasting on, and the man looks over at the intrusion and snaps through a mouthful of pie, “A little early for small council.”

Jon had hoped the man would leave him be. “Aye,” he says quietly, “that’d be why I’m here, rather than with them.”

The Hound smirks at that. He turns back to his pie for a moment, but before long, Jon can feel his harsh eyes back on him. He chances a glance over to see The Hound staring. His red, puckered skin shifting unnaturally as he shovels the rest of the food in his mouth.

“What is it?” Jon asks, hoping he doesn’t appear as intimidated as he feels.

“You look more like the girl than her sister.”

Jon squints. “What?”

“The Stark girls. Arya, she has your face, your hair. That prissy little pout. Her sister looks another breed entirely.”

Jon blinks. “Arya — you know Arya?”

“Aye.” Jon smiles, but The Hound does not. “Tried to kill me, once. In the end she only left me for dead.”

Jon’s not sure what his face does, but The Hound throws down his fork and gets to his feet, moving to sit closer to Jon on the bench. His facial burns seems to glint and twist in the morning light.

“I don’t begrudge the girl. Leaving me to die turned out to be a right kinder thing than killing me.”

Jon can’t imagine sweet, little Arya able to kill anyone, especially not someone as massive as The Hound. He tries to picture what she must look like now, all these years later. Still with their father’s face, it seems. He still can’t get his mind to fully accept that she’s alive, after spending so long coming to terms with her death.

“Is she well, then?” Jon ventures.

“Well enough, last I saw her. It’s been some time, but the girl can hold her own.” He takes an apple from where it sits in front of Jon and starts to eat it. “Nine lives, she’s got. Seems you both have that in common, too.”

Jon furrows his brow. 

“Heard that this is twice you should be dead now, bastard.” The Hound takes another bite of the apple. “Are you sure you’re not meant to be fighting alongside the white walkers?”

Jon huffs a laugh. “If I were, I doubt I’d be so nervous.”

“Aye,” The Hound answers. “Even if we truce with the bitch queen, I don’t think I see much of us surviving this winter. At least not those of us who haven’t already beat death before.”

Jon presses his lips into a grim line. “We have to try. What else have we got?”

The Hound tosses the apple core down on the table in front of Jon’s hands. “No, we don’t have a great deal many options,” he agrees tightly. “Even the pirate boy learned that much.”

The mention of Theon makes Jon grimace, especially knowing that he’s been given such a shameful reputation among the population on Dragonstone, but The Hound doesn’t seem interested in talking about him any further. Instead, he gets to his feet with a groan. Jon stifles the strange urge to ask him to stay. He hadn’t wanted him here, anyway.

“If you see your sister again, let her know I’m alive.” The Hound’s scar stretches gruesomely as he smiles, almost proud. “She’ll want to know. I’m on her list.”

Jon doesn’t ask what that means. He watches The Hound leave.

Morning is turning late and the occupants of the castle begin to stir. The idea of having to face Theon mortifies him, but the queen’s party leaves for King’s Landing at first light tomorrow, and they can’t withstand another bout of hysteria; certainly not another attempt on his life. As far as the others are aware, Theon is doing much better. If something were to happen now, they’d insist to the queen that he stay at Dragonstone. Jon would never forgive himself if Theon was forced to stay here alone. He finds himself back at Theon’s door. He hears him in his room, awake now. He can hear his voice, mumbling in hushed tones to Ghost.

Jon raises his hand to knock, but freezes. What could he possibly say? Theon must be furious with him. He would have every right. What if he doesn’t even want to see Jon? What if he never wants to speak with him again? They’re meant to arrive at the capitol as a unified front. What kind of commander can he be if Jon can barely handle the few men in his charge?

The idea occurs to him so suddenly that he’s sure Theon hears his feet hammering the stone floor as he runs down the hall.

There’s a bound roll of parchment tucked in the desk of Jon’s room. He snatches it and the leather pouch of ink and quills before returning to Theon’s door. He moves to knock again before realizing the chance of Theon not answering. Instead, he shoulders the door open, writing materials tucked under his arm.

Theon is sitting crosslegged on his bed, still dressed in his clothes from the previous day, rumpled and creased. One gloveless hand is buried in Ghost’s fur, the wolf seated on the floor in front of him. It’s obvious Theon has been crying, eyes ruddy, but he isn’t now, gaping blankly at Jon standing in his doorway. 

The look on his face is so unnervingly unreadable that Jon is at a loss of what to say.

“I — I thought you might…” Jon clears his throat. He untucks the silk pouch and parchment from under his arm and offers them hesitantly. “I thought, perhaps, you might like to write Sansa.”

Theon is so still that it seems as if the air itself is still around him. Not even Ghost moves. 

A lump starts to form in Jon’s throat. He wishes he could take it back. He should have never said the things he did. He should have stayed here through the night. He’d given his word that he would. What was he thinking, leaving him alone? Jon swallows, and the sound seems to echo in the tiny room.

In a blink, Theon leaps from the bed and clears the space between them. Jon tenses, expecting to be struck, but Theon throws his arms around Jon’s neck and buries his face into Jon’s shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Theon begs softly, “Please, I’m so sorry.”

It’s so alarming to hear an apology that the parchment and quills fall right from Jon’s hands with a clatter. He wraps his arms around Theon and squeezes.

“It’s all right, Theon,” he answers, at a loss. “It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have — I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have left. I promised I would stay and I was a coward. Forgive me. It’s all right.” 

He reaches up to nest a hand in Theon’s hair, the other hand stroking his back. Theon is still taller than him, it feels odd to have him curl over Jon to hold him close. But Jon can still feel his spine, even through his leathers.

“It’s not your fault,” Jon says, even as he still doesn’t understand what Theon is feeling. He drags his nails over Theon’s scalp, letting him cling to Jon’s cloak. “It’s all right, Theon, I promise.”

Theon’s breath wavers against Jon’s neck, and Jon holds him tighter. “Don’t cry, Theon, please.”

Anxious, he pulls Theon away and holds him at arm’s length to meet his eyes. He’s shaking, and Jon wishes helplessly that he could take it all back. How could he let himself get so angry? He wipes his thumb under Theon’s eyes and tries to smile. 

“I — I was wrong, Theon. All right? I — I shouldn’t have said what I did…” It’s hard to put his thoughts to words. With a deep breath, he tries again. “I don’t know what happened to you, what Ramsay did.”

Theon doesn’t respond, but Jon feels Theon’s muscles pull tight under his hands. 

“You never have to tell me anything,” Jon insists. He is guilty for hoping Theon never does. He brushes a wet curl from Theon’s eyes. “I shouldn’t need to know it. I know enough. I shouldn’t have said any of it. Shouting at you while you were — it wasn’t right.”

Theon shakes his head. “Jon…”

“No,” Jon interrupts. “Please, don’t — don’t tell me you’re sorry. I can’t stand it. Not for this.”

Tears roll over Jon’s fingers, still pressed to the side of Theon’s face. Theon looks at his feet, and Jon stands on the balls of his feet to press a kiss to Theon’s forehead. Theon reaches up and clenches his mangled hand in Jon’s hair. The touch seems to calm him, so Jon doesn’t move away when he meets Theon’s eyes again.

“I shouldn’t have accused you for what he did. Do you understand? I shouldn’t have—” He still doesn’t understand Theon’s reaction, his sorrow about Ramsay’s death, and perhaps he won’t, ever. Theon is shivering, hands clinging to Jon as if terrified he’ll disappear again, and that isn’t fault of Ramsay. It’s only the fault of Jon. When Jon reaches up to hold his face, he realizes his own fingers are shaking, too. “I shouldn’t have treated you that way, Theon. I shouldn’t have shouted. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t —”

“Stop,” Theon says hoarsely, “stop, it’s — it’s alright.”

It isn’t, but Theon kisses him and tucks his face against Jon’s neck. Jon holds him close, breathing deeply against his hair. 

“It’s — it’s alright, Jon,” Theon sighs, muffled, against Jon’s throat. Jon feels tears hot against his skin. “Thank you.”

Jon stays in Theon’s room as he writes to Sansa. He sits on the bed, stroking Ghost as Theon sits at the desk with a quill and ink. Jon doesn’t ask what he’s writing, but smiles when he sees Theon still manages to hold the quill with grace, despite his missing fingers. He uses almost as much parchment as Jon needed to write to Arya, and rolls it tightly before handing it to Jon.

He doesn’t act as if the scroll is private, but despite his curiosity, Jon won’t look. 

“Daenerys flies out at first light tomorrow,” he tells Theon gently, “Will you be ready?”

Theon takes a deep breath. “I suppose.”

Jon smiles. For the first time, he sees what Daenerys had seen. Bones of iron, hidden so deep even Theon seems to have forgotten them. When he stands from the bed, he kisses Theon quickly on his head.

“I’ll take this to the rookery,” he says, giving the scroll a tap. “It’ll reach the North before we do.”

Theon nods and thanks him quietly. He doesn’t follow him, but Ghost does. 

That night, Jon sleeps in Theon’s bed. Ghost dozes just outside the door.

“Jon.”

Jon snaps awake, though Theon’s voice is barely a breath in his ear. There’s no light from the window, and Jon has to squint to see Theon’s outline from the ink-black sky out the window. He can feel he isn’t shaking or sobbing, but it isn’t the first time Theon has woken entirely stoic from a nightmare.

“I’m here, Theon,” he sighs, taking hold of the scarred hand on his chest. “I’m here, go back to sleep.”

For a moment, there’s no response. Then Theon chuckles, just once, a soft gasp of breath against Jon’s neck. “No Jon, we have to get up. It’ll be dawn soon. They’ve made ready the ships outside. The queen will be waiting.”

Jon groans, embarrassed and groggy, and lets go of Theon’s hand. Theon’s fingers slide down to his hips, and Jon hears his breath go heavy. 

“I can — I have a way to wake you, if you’d like.” Theon nudges at Jon until he rolls onto his back. “I don’t need… You’ve done so much for me. I should do something for you, Jon.”

Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Jon runs a hand over his face. “What do you mean?”

There’s a tug at the drawstrings of his pants, and Jon looks out the window. Theon had said it would be light soon. They don’t have the time. Theon’s eyes must have adjusted to the darkness by now, because he can guess what Jon is thinking.

“Not for me. You don’t have to fuck me every time. I — It’s not like before, for me. It’s more difficult to… _want_. I never really want it until it’s happening, anymore.”

The way he phrases it drops like a stone in Jon’s stomach. He opens his mouth to protest, to say something, but he can’t manage the breath to speak. Theon clicks his tongue, knowing he’s misspoke.

“Don’t. I don’t mean it like that. I just… You must want it more often than I do, now. I remember what it’s like. But I can still do more for you. I could suck your cock. Did your wildling ever do that for you?”

Jon feels heat burst over the back of his neck. He sits up like the crack of a whip, wide awake. “I — no.”

“Oh,” Theon says, contemplative. “Well, I can. I think I’ve gotten —” He hesitates, and Jon’s stomach clenches. “I’m rather good at it.”

“No, I only mean —” Jon stutters as Theon hands tugs at his clothes but Jon grabs at them, keeping them around his waist. “I mean you don’t have to do that. I don’t — you only ever should touch me when you want to.”

Theon is quiet, his hands gone still. Jon still clings to the waist of his pants. He hates how little Theon talks, now, how rarely he has a response to anything Jon says. He never used to have to guess at what Theon Greyjoy was thinking. He never used to be afraid of what it could be.

“You don’t owe this to me. This isn’t — Theon, you don’t have to do this with me. Any of this.” A chill rolls through Jon’s spine. Why isn’t he saying anything? “You know that, don’t you? Tell me you know that.”

It’s still so quiet, only broken by the forlorn call of seabirds from the shore outside. Sick crawls up Jon’s throat. This whole time, Theon has just been giving Jon what he thought he wanted out some sense of debt. This was never for him. None of it. He probably never even wanted Jon in his bed. What has he done?

“I know that,” Theon whispers at last. 

Jon’s throat feels tight. He can’t move. Theon’s hands are still on the laces of his pants. 

“Theon, look at me,” he says finally, taking Theon’s hands and moving them gently away. “I don’t — I don’t want what you’re not willing to do. I’ll never want that.” Gods, why won’t he say anything? “Have you — you haven’t done that for me, have you?”

“No.”

It’s certain enough that Jon believes him, but his voice still sounds tense. Jon tries to squint through the dark enough to see the look on Theon’s face. He can still only just make out his eyes in the dark, downcast, but bright enough.

There’s a flash of teeth, and Jon realizes he’s smiling. “Insufferably righteous.”

The knot of tension in Jon’s chest unspools in an instant, and all that he can manage in response is a breathless laugh.

The darkness is so thick Jon doesn’t realize Theon has leaned forward until his mouth is against Jon’s ear. 

“Another time, then,” Theon whispers, a stern sort of promise. “They’ll send someone to collect us, soon.”

The beach is cold as they gather to see Daenerys off, even with the massive beast standing in the shallows off the shore, waves breaking against its wings and legs. It rears up and its huge black wings beat once, twice, insistent to leave as if it’s an impatient child. The wind nearly knocks Jon onto his back. Daenerys shushes the dragon gently, petting it’s scaly black snout when it lowers to nuzzle her. 

The glow at the edge of the horizon is still so dim, blocked behind the dragon’s body, that Jon can barely see in front of his face, save the glowing silver of Daenerys’s hair. A few of her bloodriders hold lanterns around the assembled council members while others escort the queen down to the shore. She speaks softly to Jorah, and Missandei. 

When she makes her way to Jon, she hugs him. “Lord Greyjoy is looking well, as are you,” she says in his ear. “Thank you.”

Jon’s too startled to respond. 

She turns and embraces Theon as well. Theon doesn’t seem as surprised to receive a hug, though his hands move awkwardly to hug her back. She says something to him that Jon doesn’t hear, and then pulls away. 

Daenerys stands before all of them, her back to the sea and the dragon, and collectively bids them safe travels and fair weather. Her council members bow in return, and she climbs aboard her dragon by the wing, the beast lifting her with incredible gentleness to the back of its long neck. She navigates it body easily, finding her saddle, and gives a command in High Valyrian, the the dragon takes to the air. The wingbeats accelerate, spraying seafoam and sand like a gail until the massive bulk of the dragon’s body is airborne and Jon still loses his breath at the sight. From the clifftops, the other dragon bellows and takes to the air as well, lurching and swinging in the red dawn sky. Daenery’s mount climbs the air to join its brother. The two spin and sing to one another before banking westward, growing distant, and soon, they are gone from sight.

It’s different, once they’re aboard the ship to King’s Landing. Everything is closer. Quarters are tighter. Unsullied sailors man the ship with a silent sort of intensity that compels Jon to stay well out of their way. Theon leaves less space between them, if only because there is simply less space to leave. They breakfast on the ship, and Theon presses against him to make room as they dine below deck. They leave Ghost to roam Dragonstone while they’re gone as they don’t have space for him below deck and the direwolf doesn’t fare well at sea, but Theon finishes his breakfast without help. 

He seems lighter at sea, and Jon wonders if it’s being on the ocean that calms him. It could be nothing at all, but Jon lets himself watch Theon lean smiling against the bulwark on the bow to see the waves, and fear loosens at his back.

Theon sits on the deck with the sunrise and watches the sailors scramble over the deck and up the masts. He looks peaceful, smiling with the breeze pulling at his curls, and Jon sits next to him.

“I don’t remember much of the times I went sailing as a child,” Theon says suddenly, as if Jon had asked. “But it still feels like home, on a ship, somehow. Like I should be here.” 

The corners of his eyes crinkle with a smile as he watches Davos throw the sail.

“On Yara’s ship —” Theon hesitates, and Jon sees the moment of shame on his face. “It was easier to sleep. The waves rocking. It’s almost like a cradle.”

Jon smiles at him. He can’t remember the last time Theon has looked so content. “I have to say, I didn’t much care for it, last time,” he says teasingly. 

Theon laughs. It’s light, soft and musical. “Don’t tell me the King in the North gets seasick.”

“I don’t,” Jon insists. “Not much.”

Theon laughs again. He looks out on the waves and his face softens and goes solemn. “Not much sailing to be had in Winterfell. Jory would never take me fishing with you Stark children, you and Bran and Robb.”

It’s such an abrupt change that Jon’s face crumples. “I — I never would have thought you would want to,” he says. “You never seemed bothered by it. You never seemed bothered by anything.”

Theon smiles again, but it’s this time, it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No,” he answers, “I didn’t.”

There’s something dark under his words, and Jon closes the distance between them, scooting closer. “Don’t suppose you’d like to fish now?” he asks.

“We’re travelling too fast, I’d reckon. Doubt this brig has any lines or bait anyway,” Theon says with a hint of exasperation. Jon doesn’t care. He just wants to make Theon smile again.

“It wasn’t right of Jory to leave you out,” Jon admits. “But perhaps he was worried you’d catch more fish than the rest of us.” The corner of Theon’s mouth twitches, amused, despite himself. Jon adds, “The one time I caught anything at all, I had to give it to Bran. He was only six, and hadn’t caught anything.”

Theon’s smiling wider when he looks at Jon then. “You didn’t have to give him anything,” he says kindly. “You just did.”

There are fewer places to be, on the ship. Less to do. They’ve only been at sea a few hours before Theon leads him to his cabin and sits him on the bed. Theon climbs into his lap, kneeling to kiss along Jon’s neck and jawline. Jon shudders when Theon pulls off his gloves and runs his hands through his hair.

“What’s this?” Jon asks hesitantly.

“Another time,” Theon answers, smirking.

Jon’s face goes hot, and he tries to stand, but Theon doesn’t budge. “Theon, I said it —”

“You said what I wanted,” Theon recites. “And I want. I do. I want to…”

Theon trails off, second-guessing. They never did this, before. Theon used to boast of having whores do it for him, but he would have never asked such a one-sided thing of Jon. Jon probably would’ve rejected him, if he had. Ygritte never did this, either. He’d done it to her, in a fashion. He’d enjoyed that. But this is different. It seems cold and impersonal.

“I’m not sure I’ll — like it,” Jon admits finally.

Theon snorts, easing himself down to his knees. “Everyone likes it.”

Jon frowns. _You don’t,_ he doesn’t say. 

Theon looks down at his lap. “Can I try?”

He wants to. He’s asking. Jon looks down, too. “I — all right.”

Pulling the laces open, Theon sits up on his knees to reach Jon’s mouth, tugging him into a kiss. It’s deep, slow, cupping the back of Jon’s head with one hand and licking over his bottom lip. He holds Jon to the kiss so long that he starts to get lightheaded. When he finally pulls away, it’s only to lick his palm before easing it down Jon’s pants.

Jon sits up with a yelp, and Theon smirks against the kiss. “Haven’t learned _that_ much then, have you?”

Jon sputters. “I thought you wanted to use your mouth.”

“I will,” Theon growls against his lips as he pulls Jon back into the kiss. Jon feels his cock twitch from the tone of his voice. “It’s just easier to get you ready first.”

It’s hard not to melt into the kiss. Theon had never kissed him much when they were younger, not unless Robb was angry with him. It happened so rarely, he can’t recall how different it is now, the desperation in how he holds Jon still, the way he’ll nip playfully at Jon’s bottom lip when he breaks away to breathe. Jon loses track of what they’re doing, and falls back onto the bed, trying to drag Theon with him.

Smiling, Theon doesn’t budge. “She never did this for you?”

Jon shakes his head. “No, I — I did it for her, but she — she offered, once, but I was… I said no.”

Theon’s eyes widen. His hand tenses on Jon’s cock, and Jon gasps. His smile has only gotten bigger, but Jon considers if he’s jealous. 

He means to ask, but Theon ducks his head and wraps his mouth around the tip of his cock, and all that comes out instead is “ _Gods —_ ”

Sitting up a little straighter, Theon pulls Jon further into his mouth, his tongue running flat on the underside. Jon’s head is spinning. His heart is beating so hard it feels as if it’s pounding from the outside. Theon’s mouth is like warm silk on his skin. His jaw falls slack as he takes Jon to the hilt, and Jon loses track of what he’s saying. Theon’s name, murmured again and again. Blasphemy of every sort, cursing the Seven gods he never believed in. The short, wiry beard on Theon’s jaw scrapes over the inside of Jon’s thigh, and a hand flings out to find purchase in Theon’s hair. Theon whimpers when Jon’s nails clench in his scalp, but when he tries to pull away, Theon’s mangled hand snaps out to hold his wrist still to his hair. Jon sits up to see Theon crawled almost entirely into Jon’s lap, sucking him down, eyes closed. Waves crash against the hull of the ship, and Jon feels himself slip, just slightly, off the bed.

“Theon,” he says again, voice gravelly. Theon doesn’t stop, and Jon recalls he’s been babbling his name from the start. “Theon, look — look at me. Please.”

His eyes snap open instantly, blue and bright, and Jon’s mouth falls open in a gasp. He wants, stupidly, to kiss him, to pull him into his lap and let Theon ride him until his eyes roll back in his head. Instead, he curls protectively over Theon halfway in his lap, and the words fall from his mouth before he can stop them. 

“You’re beautiful, Theon.”

They both freeze as the words leave his mouth, and Jon bites his lip. He’s said something wrong, he knows he has. Something Ramsay used to say. Something that takes Theon back to the Dreadfort. He cringes, trying to pull away, but Theon’s mouth slides off him first, and his hand wraps tight around the base of his cock. It’s not unpleasant, and when his fingers start to roll from base to tip, Jon’s breath catches in his teeth.

For a moment, Theon just stares at him as he works Jon over with his hand. His eyes are more focused than Jon has ever seen them. The ship heaves underneath them and Theon sits up with a jolt, taking Jon’s mouth in his own.

The kiss tastes of sweat and sex, but Jon whimpers against it. Theon’s hand doesn’t stop moving, and Jon feels his spine starting to twitch. Theon quivers against the kiss, his breath coming in gasps into Jon’s mouth. When Jon’s breath hitches hard in his throat, Theon pulls away and slides his mouth back over Jon’s cock, lips almost reaching the hilt.

“Fuck —” Jon curses, and Theon’s eyes flick back to his face.

He’s never looked quite like this, before. He could almost be whole, the way he’s pressed into Jon’s lap, the way his eyes are sparkling. He gives Theon’s hair a light tug when Theon’s eyes slide closed. Jon’s heart feels as if it’s going to burst in his chest. The sound of the ocean throws Jon more than the way they’re bobbing on the water. He can barely hold himself upright.

“Theon,” his voice cracks. “Please look at me, I want —”

Theon’s eyes dart open again, and Jon loses his composure, coming hard down Theon’s throat. Theon pulls back almost instantly to cough for breath, his chest heaving. Immediately, guilt soaks into Jon’s skin.

“Are you — alright?”

“I’ve never — heard you curse before,” Theon wheezes instead of answering. “Was that — your first time doing that, too?”

In another time, Jon may have shoved him off and fled the room, red-faced. Now, all he can manage is a laugh.

How old they both seem now.

Theon likes to make him laugh. He doesn’t always laugh in return, sometimes doesn’t even smile, but Jon sees it in his eyes. The same light that they always used to have, as if in on a joke no one else quite gets.

They don’t mention what Jon had said to him. Jon is too embarrassed, and Theon acts now as if he never heard.

“Do you want —” Jon starts, but the question catches in his throat. He can’t return the gesture. But he can do something. “— Anything?”

Theon sits up on his knees and kisses Jon again. His mouth tastes of sweat and bitter salt, but Jon doesn’t pull away. When Theon breaks the kiss, he presses his forehead against Jon’s.

“This was for you, remember?” he says, voice still winded. “Alright? You don’t have to be so honorable all the time. Others can take care of _you_ now and then.”

At nightfall the two of them fall asleep in Jon’s bunk to the gentle rock of the waves, Jon’s arm curled tight over Theon’s middle.


	6. Chapter 6

They find time to themselves that following evening as the sun turns the sky a washed lilac blue and the gulls cry and turn back to shore. Together they sit at the bow of the ship to watch the waves and talk of King’s Landing. Watching the ship cut through the water seems to relax Theon enough to talk of such things. He’s in a far better mood at sea, Jon notes, more talkative on the ship than he’d ever been on Dragonstone.

“You don’t seem as worried as the rest of us,” Theon mentions, glancing to Jon as they start to discuss meeting the queen’s party. Even as he says it, Jon feels exposed, as if his skin is torn away to reveal nothing but thick black fear dripping from his bones. It’s possible Theon is mocking him. “Are you frightened of her?”

 _Terrified,_ Jon doesn’t say. He’s afraid to burden Theon with concerns that are not his. 

Instead he says, “Not of her, strictly, but…” He hesitates, not wanting to be dishonest, either. “But I am scared. Of what could happen. To all of us. To the whole of the Seven Kingdoms. It’s so big that sometimes I still think I don’t know what I’m doing. Tyrion seems certain and I trust him most of any of them but— well, you know what I’m like. I’ve never been the optimistic sort.”

Theon’s mouth is a tight line. He nods. Jon clicks his tongue. He’s said the wrong thing, and now Theon feels like a coward for being afraid. 

“Do you remember what it was like when she came to Winterfell?” Jon clears his throat with a casual tilt of his head.

Theon doesn’t answer for a moment. When Jon looks back at him, he can tell that his thoughts have turned to Bran’s fall. When he notices Jon staring, he only nods.

“I’d been nothing, then. Just Ned Stark’s bastard. She barely even looked at me.”

“Aye, I remember,” Theon says with a shrug. “Honestly, I was annoyed at their arrival. The last time I saw the king, I was nine years old in Pyke and he and your father took me away. I was praying he wouldn’t recognize me. Especially tucked like a secret behind the Stark children. The bastard and the ward we were, trotted out last behind all the rest to greet the royals. ”

For some reason, the memory makes Jon grin. He had forgotten standing next to Theon that morning, listening to him grumble under his breath how he could give the queen a better fucking than King Robert could ever hope. Jon had rolled his eyes at the time, soured at Theon’s vulgarity, but even as he thinks of it now, Theon’s eyes had lit up at getting a rise out of him. He had always loved getting a reaction out of Jon. 

Jon looks back at Theon and playfully nudges his shoulder.

“I don’t think I’ve seen your hair done that nicely before or since,” he smirks.

“Oh, who are you to talk,” Theon shoots back, swatting at Jon’s knot of hair. “Is it your brothers in black who finally convinced you to tie your stupid mane back, or was it that wildling girl of yours?”

When Theon tugs briefly at the knot at the back of Jon’s head, Jon schools his expression, forcing the smirk to stay.

“Neither,” he admits, “Just time.”

They fall silent gradually, the mood shifting again. The wind turns cold, suddenly, and the salty air goes from fresh to bitter. Sails rattle over their heads. Theon’s curls sweep and tug in the breeze. Neither of them are able to separate the royal visit to Winterfell from Bran’s fall. The days of celebration and hunting followed by tears and nights without sleep. 

“Do you think it _was_ the Lannisters,” Theon asks quietly. Jon knows instantly what he means, but Theon still adds, “Who pushed Bran, I mean?”

“I’d hope not. I really do.” Jon scowls. “Otherwise this truce will be a sham.”

Theon seems surprised by that, but Jon doesn’t understand why. 

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Theon answers, “You just… really do sound like a king.” 

Jon smiles hesitantly, but Theon doesn’t notice. He’s looking out over the waves.

“You look the part as well. Your direwolf armour and your fine fur cloak. Hard to even remember the sulky brat you were in Winterfell, anymore,” he says fondly.

They lapse into silence again as they watch the waves, but something is still weighing on Theon’s mind. Jon can see it in his eyes. Possibly it’s Yara, which makes Jon hesitant to ask. Eventually, Theon speaks without provocation. 

"When is it over, Jon?” He looks at Jon, and for an instant he thinks Theon means whatever it is going on between them. “The parlay, the truce, the white walkers, the war… What happens after all this? It all seems pointless, in the end. Families fighting families, children fighting children, and on and on. Do we just carry on the way it was before, after all our fighting to change it?” He grimaces. “ _Your_ fighting, at least. When does it stop?"

He seems calm, asking now. His eyes are dry. Jon remembers the way he spoke of death, of Rickon or of Ramsay, but there’s less fear in him now. He looks Jon in the eye, and his voice is level. Imploring. Jon chews his lip. He’s asked himself the same questions since before leaving Sansa at Winterfell, and he still has no answer. Theon’s eyes are searching, waiting for a response. He waits patiently, breathing even. He’s not hanging on Jon’s words, now. Watching him, Jon remembers what Lord Beric had told him, beyond the Wall. He swallows.

“Maybe it never does," he tells Theon finally. “We just keep fighting. Perhaps that's all we can do."

Theon looks at his feet. For a moment, Jon thinks he’s said something wrong, but only Theon nods.

“I suppose so.”

Nightfall sends a chill along the water, and Theon start to shiver violently, despite his clenched jaw. Jon tries not to be obvious in taking pity on him. “We should retire below deck,” he offers. “It’s gotten rather late.”

Thankfully, Theon agrees without hesitance, and they climb down the near-vertical ladders to the belly of the ship. Instinctively, Jon reaches for Theon’s hand as they approach the cabins, but when Theon doesn’t take it, he looks behind him. 

“I —” Theon clears his throat. “I think I’ll sleep in my own bunk, tonight. At least — I want to try.”

Jon raises his eyebrows, surprised and proud, but Theon misinterprets.

“I’m not angry or anything, I swear,” he says, turning red. “I still want to, but... It’s just — what you were saying up at the bow —” His eyes flick up, above deck. “We won’t have this, soon. Nothing will be the same. We’ll be off to war, and I —”

“Theon,” Jon murmurs, smiling. “Theon, that’s fine. I’m — I already told you back in Dragonstone, you’re allowed to sleep where you like.”

After searching Jon’s eyes, Theon smiles back. “I remember.”

“I’m behind this door if you change your mind,” Jon assures gently.

Theon nods. “For now.”

“For now,” Jon agrees.

Theon looks as if he wants to say something else, so Jon doesn’t turn away from him, waiting patiently as the words work out in Theon’s head. Instead of having anything to say, Theon leans forward and places a quick kiss on Jon’s mouth.

“Goodnight,” he mutters hurriedly, turning and walking down the hall to his own bunk alone. 

Jon watches him go, grinning.

He stays awake most of the night, worrying over their arrival in the capital, worrying Theon may come to him after all, but he never does.

When he sees Theon the next morning, he can’t help but ask over breakfast how he slept. Theon’s face breaks into a grin. 

“I did alright,” he says honestly. 

Jon beams at him.

When Theon doesn’t come to his cabin the next night, or the next, Jon can feel the difference in his bed, notices the chill that clings to the pillows that hadn’t before. Still, he feels far more pride than he does loneliness.

Theon has slept in his own room for several nights when Jon finds him one mid-afternoon day leaning over the bulwark at the bow of the ship. Despite himself, Jon’s chest jolts with dread, remembers the terror when Theon had stood on the rampart of the North Tower in Dragonstone, but Theon has his feet tucked under the bench at the bow, holding himself stable against the ratlines and watching the seafoam break against the hull. He belongs here, Jon thinks, at sea. He looks more at peace than Jon has seen him since Dragonstone, watching the waves.

When Theon notices Jon, he smiles, just for a moment, before turning back to watch the horizon. Jon ducks under a few ropes, sitting next to Theon on the bulwark and Theon asks abruptly, “Do you remember that time Arya fell off the pier when we’d all gone to White Harbor?”

It feels like a pointed question. Apprehension throbs at the back of Jon’s neck at the memory. Jon had thrown himself into the water after her on pure instinct, and the weight of his heavy sopping furs had sunk him almost immediately. Theon had ended up having to dive after the both of them. He’d been such a strong swimmer then, and faster than a shark. 

Lady Catelyn had been furious with them when they returned with Arya soaking wet. She hadn’t even noticed Jon was drenched as well before he vanished to his room to change and dry. He heard later from Robb that he and Theon had covered for him, telling Lady Catelyn that she’d jumped in when the boys weren’t looking, rather than fallen.

It’s been years since Jon has thought of that day. Theon had been nothing more than his father’s ward to him then, an annoyance, a competitor for the Stark’s good graces. It would be another year before Theon would kiss him in the godswood.

“She scared me half to death,” Jon answers, the memory striking a tender chord in his heart. 

Theon smiles. “Me, as well.” When he does look at Jon, his smirk is teasing. “So did you, flying in after her dressed in all your thick Northern furs like some kind of idiot. Thought I was going to have to return to Lord Stark with two fewer children than I’d left with.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Jon pouts. “I was only twelve.”

“You’d do the same thing if it happened today, I reckon.”

The apprehension dissipates. So that’s what this is about. “I’d remove my cloak this time,” Jon assures dryly. “And I’m a much better swimmer these days.”

Theon looks at his knees. The smirk flickers back onto his face. “Didn’t you nearly drown, beyond the Wall?”

Jon shoves his shoulder, and Theon laughs, but it’s short-lived and quiet. The waves rock them gently, side to side, and Theon asks, “You’ll be careful out there?”

“I’ll be careful,” he promises.

It’s a while before they speak again. They both gaze out at the waves, lulled into a quiet calm. When the silence finally breaks, it’s Theon who speaks. 

“You must be excited to see her again. Arya, I mean. She was always your favourite.”

“I love all of them,” Jon insists without hesitation.

“Of course,” Theon says with a solemn nod, “but Arya was your favourite. Everyone knew.”

Jon’s not sure why it makes him smile. Theon notices, and smiles too. 

“You even look alike. Or at least you did. No idea what she looks like now, but I can imagine.” He looks out at the waves then, as if trying to. “The others all looked like Tullys. You two, you look like Starks.”

Jon’s not sure what to say to that. He sees the way Theon’s face changes and knows he’s thinking of Robb. He’s afraid to interrupt.

“You’re lucky to have her,” Theon says finally. “Even though you haven’t seen her since — since before you took the black. I was never close with any of mine, not even Yara. I can’t even remember my brother’s faces, anymore, not really.”

It’s strange to remember that Theon had other brothers. He never spoke of them before. Jon opens his mouth to ask Theon something, anything about the Iron Islands, but Theon speaks again before he can think. 

“And Yara. I didn’t even remember her. When I was a boy I thought she hated me.”

Jon tries to smile. “I thought the same of Sansa, once.”

Theon looks back at him, startled. To him, it must have seemed like they all loved Jon. More than they loved Theon, at least. Jon regrets interrupting him. The confession seems to stagger him. 

Clearing his throat, Jon coaxes, “Why would she hate you?”

Theon shrugs at that. “They all did. None of them ever liked me. I was the youngest by a number of years, more trouble than I was worth to them I suppose. Spoilt little child, they thought. Yara minded me the least, I suppose, but she still did.” He resituates himself on the bench, turning away from the water. “When I was set to leave with your father, she pushed me off the pier into Ironman’s Bay and told me not to come back.”

Jon clicks his tongue against his teeth. “When I was nine, you shoved me face first into the snow and told me you had more claim to Winterfell than I did, because Sansa would be promised to you.”

Theon snorts. “I did.” He looks at Jon as if searching for resentment. When he finds none, he continues, “She never seemed to care for me, and she cared even less when I returned to Pyke. Thought I was a threat to her claim as heir, and she did her best to shame me. But when our father sent us to raid the North, when she came to me after I took Winterfell… she tried to warn me. She told me to leave, to get out while I still could, that I would never be able to hold the castle. She told me what a difficult baby I was. How all I ever did was cry.”

Even now, having held Theon through helpless sobs, Jon takes a moment to picture him crying as a child. Jon had never seen him cry once, before Dragonstone. 

Theon’s words are getting thicker, his voice softer. It still wounds him, to speak of Yara. “Once, she said, she’d made it to my crib without any of the nurses seeing her, and had every intention to kill me for how loud I was squawling,” Jon frowns, but Theon is smiling. “But when she looked over the crib, she said, I stopped crying and smiled at her. And it stopped her. And she… she remembered that, over everything. Even then, when I was —”

Abruptly, Theon falls silent. Jon lets him soak in the memory for a moment, before touching the back of his neck. “Theon?”

When Theon looks up, his face is resolute. “Wind’s picked up,” he says pointedly, getting to his feet. “It’ll be dark soon. We should go inside for dinner. Stay out of the crew’s way.” 

Jon knows better than to push the discussion. 

He expects, as night falls, for Theon to come to him, craving a sort of closeness after what they spoke of above deck, but he doesn’t. 

Jon falls asleep alone, his back turned toward the door.

Their little fleet sails up the Blackwater with relative ease. They pass small fishing vessels hauling in nets and in the distance the occasional Lannister scout appears and dashes quickly away over the horizon, relaying their progress back to the queen in the capitol no doubt. The night before they’re supposed to reach King’s Landing, Jon is dressing for bed when there’s a tentative knock on his door. He tries to ignore the unexpected rush of exhilaration when he opens the door to Theon standing there, and instead schools his expression to look concerned.

“Theon, is everything alright?”

Swallowing, Theon nods. He doesn’t say anything, and Jon instinctively steps aside to let him in. 

“I’m alright, ship’s fine. Everything’s fine,” he says finally. “I just — we’ll arrive at King’s Landing by the morning.”

“We will,” Jon answers. “Do you — do you want to come in?”

Theon looks over his shoulder. When he looks back, he looks embarrassed, almost ashamed. Jon shakes his head.

“It’s alright,” Jon says. “There’s no shame. I’m — I’m nervous, too.” He lets out a sheepish little laugh. “I’m bloody terrified, really. I’d like the company, if you’re not bothered.”

It reminds Jon, strangely, of their first morning in Dragonstone after he’d returned from beyond the Wall, uncertain of Theon’s response. Finally, Theon steps inside. Jon smiles when he instantly goes to sit on Jon’s bunk, knowing he’s invited to. He gnaws quietly at the corner of his thumbnail. Jon hasn’t noticed him do that in weeks. He reaches out and pulls Theon’s hand away from his mouth. Theon’s three fingers curl over Jon’s hand and he looks up, big green eyes open and searching like a child, somehow melting away the years of damage and brutality.

“If we fail, and we don’t secure a truce— If we do all this and it still doesn’t work —” Theon says, voice cracking.

“It will. It has to,” Jon interrupts. “Don’t think like that. The queen is Lord Tyrion’s sister, and even he believes it’ll… It has to.”

Theon watches him. He looks awed as Jon sits down next to him. He looks at him that way so often now, but never says anything when he does. 

Taking a deep breath, Jon adds, “They’ll see reason. They have too. Even Cersei Lannister has to be afraid of what the army of the dead will bring, doesn’t she? Even she has to fear the end of the world.”

“I don’t know,” Theon whispers. He’s looking at his hands, and Jon reads the shame on his face.

“You’ll be all right,” Jon insists, squeezing Theon’s knee. “Daenerys’ whole council will be with us. And the bloodriders. Even the dragons are coming. If all goes well, you won’t even have to speak. Your presence is enough.”

“I’ve never been to King’s Landing,” Theon mutters, shy.

Jon shrugs, sitting beside him on the bunk. “I haven’t, either.”

It seems to occur to Theon for the first time. A smile flickers on his face. “Aye,” he says after a moment, “but you’re a king.”

Something hot rolls down Jon’s back. “I’m — I’m not anymore. I —”

“You are,” Theon interrupts. There’s something strange in his voice. Breathless, as if he ran here. “You’re the King in the North. You’re —” Jon jolts as Theon crawls into his lap. His hands tangle in Jon’s hair and he drags him close. “You could be king of it all if you wanted.”

Jon’s face is burning. Theon doesn’t speak like this. Not having Daenerys around has made him treasonously bold. “Theon, are you drunk?”

“No,” Theon answers, gasping. “I’m just frightened, Jon. Help me to not be. I just want — I want to… please…”

His eyes are on fire. Skin scarlet with embarrassment, Jon realizes why he’s keening desperate in Jon’s lap like a maiden. Jon reaches up to touch his face. _You don’t have to be scared,_ he doesn’t say. _Just hold on to me. We’ll make it out of this alive._

But he can’t promise such things, so he doesn’t. He can’t even promise they’ll ever have the chance to do this again. He just pulls Theon close to him, dragging him down to meet his mouth by his sunbleached curls. Theon fumbles to pull off Jon’s clothes, and Jon slides Theon’s layers off of him, pulling him onto the bunk and laying him back flat against the furs draped over the mattress. The orange light from the lamp is enough to fill the small room with a soft golden glow, and Jon drinks in Theon’s body.

He’s been eating better, sleeping well enough, and it shows. His skin is no longer as pale and yellowed, and though Jon can still see his ribs through his skin, it’s not as easy as it once was. He leans forward and kisses down his ribs. Theon jolts under his hands. 

“What’re —”

Jon doesn’t say anything, but Theon doesn’t finish his question. He kisses downward, pressing his mouth to the gnarled flesh of each of Theon’s scars, until he reaches the smooth curve between his legs. When Jon kisses the scars there, he hears Theon let out a watery gasp. When he looks up, Theon is smiling at him, his eyes wet.

“I — I can’t feel that,” he says brokenly.

There’s a stab of pain in Jon’s chest as he says it, but he refuses to let the heartbreak show on his face. 

“I don’t think that’s entirely true,” he insists.

Before Theon can respond, Jon leans forward to plant more kisses between his legs. It still leaves Jon lightheaded with misery to even see the scars and missing pieces from Theon’s body, but Theon sits up straighter with every kiss Jon presses to his skin. The words fall from his his mouth again as he drags his tongue over a faded white scar along the inside of Theon’s thigh.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Stop that,” Theon snaps suddenly. “I’m not. I know it. You don’t have to — you don’t have to lie to me.”

Jon pushes Theon back down against the furs of the bed. “It’s not a lie,” he says firmly. “I want you, Theon. As you are.” _I always did_ sticks hard in Jon’s throat, and it hangs unspoken between them, somehow louder than the actual words he said.

“You’ve always been beautiful, Greyjoy,” he says instead, the silence crushing him. “You used to know better than anyone. No amount of scars could ever change that.”

Theon only stares. He opens his mouth to argue, but Jon doesn’t let him, capturing his mouth in his own to kiss the protest out of him.

“Jon,” he says when Jon kisses down his neck. “You don’t — have to be this kind to me.”

“I like to,” Jon repeats, nipping gently into a long white scar just below Theon’s throat. “It’s not a lie that I want you.”

 _I am yours and you are mine,_ a soft voice says in the back of his head. His heart clenches, and his jaw snaps shut. He can’t say that to Theon. It’s stupid to think. It would only terrify him. 

As it is, it only makes Jon’s heart heavy in his chest.

“Come here,” Jon murmurs, taking hold of Theon’s wrist and pulling him to sit upright. 

Theon blinks, confused, as Jon reaches for the lamp oil in the drawer at the head of his bunk. 

Pulling Theon into his lap, he says it again, softer, “Come here.”

Curious, Theon wraps his legs around Jon’s waist and lets his hands fall over his shoulders. “What —?”

Jon dips his fingers in the oil and situates Theon in his lap, sliding a finger into him. Theon falls silent, tucking his face into Jon’s neck, breathing heavy against his skin. Jon works his hand inside him, careful and delicate. The ship rocks softly under them, and Jon feels lulled into a daze as he works Theon open, holding him close to his chest until Theon whimpers against his throat.

Shaking himself from his trance, Jon slicks himself and pulls Theon onto him, cupping his face as he thrusts inside.

Whimpering, Theon’s eyes slide shut, but Jon only drags his thumbs over Theon’s face until he blinks his eyes back open. His eyes are dark and warm, and he seems to see through Jon, past whatever mask he’s convinced himself he’s wearing. 

_Did you ever want me before,_ Jon wonders but doesn’t ask. _Did you ever want me over Robb, when we were young?_

There’s something in Theon’s eyes as if he hears him, or maybe he’s just lost in his own head, eyes wide and desperate, and Jon pulls him into a kiss. Theon purrs against it and Jon holds him close, rocking his hips in a languid pace as he claims his mouth. His heart is pounding and he can feel Theon’s pulse hammering in his neck under Jon’s fingers, and abruptly, foolishly, Jon never wants to reach King’s Landing. He doesn’t want to have to fight this war. He doesn’t want the sun to rise at all. In this moment, they could almost be in Winterfell. Theon holding his hair and keening into Jon’s rhythm.

It’s only for a moment, before the rock of the ship breaks the spell.

Theon groans at the motion, and Jon holds Theon’s sharp hips down against his own. Theon barely stops kissing him long enough to breathe. He’s murmuring to him, but with his mouth pressed to Jon’s, there’s no way to understand him. Finally, panting and shaking, Theon drops his forehead to Jon’s, blinking his eyes open. They look so bright that Jon feels as if they can burn right through him. 

“Harder, Jon,” Theon groans, pulling him back into a kiss. “It feels… I want it hard — harder.” 

Jon tries to move faster as the ship sways from side to side, but Theon only whines, his nails digging hard into Jon’s scalp. 

“Fuck me,” he begs helplessly, breathing the words into Jon’s mouth. “Gods, fuck me.”

His words are making Jon’s head spin. 

“Theon,” he murmurs, shock pulsing through his veins. “Tell — tell me. How does it — Does it feel good?” 

Theon whimpers, tucking his head into Jon’s throat. “The — the waves,” he mumbles nonsensically, “Rocking — it feels… I want — harder…” 

It’s molten in Jon’s blood. He ascents, grabbing ahold of Theon’s waist with both hands and pushing forward with all the might he can manage through the swaying of the waves. Theon jerks in Jon’s lap, but his eyes gaze down at him in an unfocused haze.

“Jon —” he whimpers, “Please…”

Jon nods, but as he thrusts his hips, Theon rips his head back by the hair, dragging Jon’s throat prone. Arousal burns down his spine.

“ _More,_ ” Theon snarls against his neck, and Jon’s mind fills with fog.

He squeezes Theon’s waist, trying to push further, harder, but Theon’s hand slams against his chest and shoved him down against the furs. His eyes are like a thrashing storm, green and roiling, knees gripping Jon’s hips, shaking as he rocks back against Jon’s cock. His face is slack, lost in the swells, and Jon feels as if his heart is going to beat out of his chest.

“Don’t — don’t move,” slurs from Theon’s mouth, and Jon clenches a fist into the pillow at his head. 

With his free hand, Theon leans forward and snatches the top of the headboard from where it’s knocking against the wall and shoves it hard, holding it steady as he levers himself back against Jon’s cock so quickly the edges of Jon’s vision starts to go white. His lungs are heaving, but he can’t seem to catch a breath.

“Theon —” Jon manages, eyes rolling back. “Gods, Theon —”

There’s a gasp above him, a helpless shout, but Jon doesn’t move to see what he’s done. Not when Theon told him not to. His veins are on fire and his heart is pumping lightning and all he knows is Theon’s breath over him, panting and begging. His skin is burning, and suddenly, the weight on his chest lifts and there’s a fierce grip in his hair. Pain shoots all the way down to the base of Jon’s neck, tingling along the edge of pleasure.

He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, Theon barks, “Shut up.”

He gasps, desperate, but Theon doesn’t hear him. Theon isn’t even looking at him anymore, his eyelids fallen shut. His jaw is slack and he’s trembling all over. Jon has never wanted so badly to touch him.

_Don’t move._

“Just let me — let me —” Theon’s voice is quiet now, no longer meant for Jon. He’s babbling helplessly under his breath. “I need —”

Jon nods dumbly, but even if Theon were finishing his sentences, he is only half listening. He bites hard on the inside of his cheek. He won’t let himself come before Theon, not this time. Whatever Theon needs, Jon wants to give it to him.

Blood thrums so tight in his veins that Jon has to shut his eyes to the bursts of red in his vision. He can’t think past the ringing, burning sensation of skin against skin. Too much, too little, just enough. The rock of the waves sends his whole body swimming, desperate to move, but he can’t, he won’t. Theon is keening over him, whimpering like a maiden while he writhes against Jon’s hips. The sound claws into Jon’s skin like nails, driving him mad, and he knows that if he opens his eyes, if he sees Theon for just a moment, he’ll be lost.

“ _Jon._ ” Theon’s voice is raw, barely a whisper, and Jon’s hips jolt upward at the sound of it. “Jon, _gods —_ ”

He knows he shouldn’t, but Jon’s eyes fly open at the broken sigh of Theon’s voice. He’s not expecting Theon’s eyes on him, glassy and wide. Jon feels pinned, and his breath seizes in his chest. Theon doesn’t say anything. He barely seems to breathe. The hand ratted in Jon’s hair slides free of his curls and takes Jon’s hand, holding it tight against the furs beneath Jon’s head.

The air around them freezes, white and still and silent.

“Theon —” His name leaves Jon’s mouth like a gulp for air, and for just an instant, Theon smiles. 

He feels Theon’s body tighten around him, and bites the inside of his mouth to hold himself together. It feels like hours before Theon finally goes loose over him. The sound that falls from Theon’s mouth sounds more like a sob releasing from his chest than anything else, and he crumples against Jon’s chest. He’s gasping heavy against Jon’s skin, soft keening breaths dragging raspy from his lungs.

“Theon,” Jon whispers again, mind still reeling. 

He’s still hard, but Theon is trembling, air bursting out from him in a loud rasp against Jon’s skin. Worried, Jon shuts his eyes as he shifts out of Theon to cradle him close. His heart is still pounding, chest heaving for breath, and it takes everything to think past the need to pin Theon into the furs and thrust into him until Jon comes. He’s afraid to open his eyes, terrified to see Theon splayed over him and be unable to help himself. His hands are shaking to keep still on Theon’s skin. Theon drops his forehead to Jon’s chest, and Jon lets his free hand stroke along Theon’s body, his back, his legs, his other still pinned at his head by Theon’s mangled hand. Theon shivers overtop of him, thighs shaking as Jon rolls his hand along them comfortingly. It feels like years before Jon trusts himself to open his eyes again.

When he does he can’t see Theon’s face at all, only his back bowed and quivering over Jon’s chest.

“Theon, look — look at me, are you alright?”

The hand still hanging limp from the headboard of Jon’s bed falls to knot tight in Jon’s hair pulls him into a kiss, lazy and slack against Jon’s mouth. He doesn’t answer, but his breath is heaving in loud gasps past Jon’s lips, desperate and needy, and Jon feels his throat pull tight.

“Jon,” Theon says as he pulls away. His voice is heavy, holding onto something, but he doesn’t say anything else. He kisses Jon again and only sighs, “ _Jon._ ”

Tension drains from Jon’s chest and he kisses back, reaching up to cup his face. “You’re shaking,” Jon whispers against his mouth, “Are you — sure you’re alright?”

Instead of answering, Theon pins him back against the bed and kisses the air from Jon’s lungs. When he pulls back, panting, Jon has to blink colour back into his vision. Theon is watching him with a look Jon has never seen on his face before, as if he’s not sure it’s Jon looking back at him.

“Theon?” Jon’s voice cracks, and Theon’s brow furrows.

“You — you didn’t…”

Jon shakes his head. He’s still struggling to catch his breath. “Don’t worry about it. It’s alright —”

“No, I shouldn’t have —” Theon interrupts meekly. He shifts up, his hand pulling out of Jon’s grip. “I — I’m sorry. You — you should fuck me, keep going. You can finish. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s alright,” Jon repeats in a rush, flushing deeply. A moment ago he might not have had the presence to refuse him. He’s thankful Theon is only asking now.

“I can suck your cock again,” Theon offers bluntly. “I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean — I’m sorry —” 

He’s starting to sound frantic, so Jon takes Theon’s face in his hands to stop his babbling, forcing their eyes to meet.

“Theon,” he says firmly. “It’s alright. This was — this was for you. Alright?”

He looks back at Jon confused, his words only seeming to dawn on him in stages. 

“That’s it,” Jon murmurs, pulling him back down to press a kiss to Theon’s forehead. “It’s alright.”

He folds his arms over Theon’s back and pulls him to his chest, letting their heartbeats even out as the ocean rocks them in silence. After a moment, Jon feels Theon’s fingers tracing along the mortal scars over his chest again. Jon doesn’t move to stop him, even when a jagged nail catches on a sensitive spot. Theon’s fascination with them only ever seems to calm his mind. When Jon finally does move, it’s just to run his hand through Theon’s hair.

“I don’t quite remember the rules,” Jon says with a smirk, “but does this make me your salt wife?”

He’s not expecting Theon to go tense in his arms. “What?”

Shuffling to sit up on his elbows, Jon feels disappointment in himself. He hadn’t meant to upset him. Not after all that.

“Well, now that we’ve, um, lain together at sea. I thought that’s what it meant. I only—”

“How do you — how do you know that?” Theon interrupts. His voice is more curious than anything. He props up on his elbows, eyeing Jon as if positive he’s hiding something. “What a salt wife is?”

Nervous, Jon laughs. “Are — are you joking? You would always… you would never shut up about it. Always talked of raiders and longships and salt and rock wives at length, in Winterfell. Would always go on about how one day you would be Lord of the Iron Islands and have hundreds of women in all the seas and every port around the world. I always thought you only did it to taunt me and make me mad, because I was a bastard and I would never inherit anything. But I used to think everything was about me, when we were young. The world was all one grand slight against me, it seemed. I was just sulky child.” 

“I talked of —” Theon squints at him. It isn’t until Jon watches him swallow a lump in his throat that he realizes that he’s trying not to cry. “I talked of plenty nonsense at length, back then.”

“I remember,” Jon answers, nodding. A long silence passes between them. Neither of them move until Jon finally asks, “What’s — what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” Theon manages unconvincingly. There are tears in his eyes, and Jon reaches up instinctively to wipe them away.

“I hadn’t meant to upset you,” Jon apologizes. “I was only trying to make you laugh.”

At that, Theon does laugh, despite himself. 

“Well, don’t laugh _now._ ” Jon admonishes, but smiles himself. “Now it just seems as if you’re mocking me.”

Theon’s face cracks into another peal of laughter, and Jon’s heart trips in his chest. Foolishly bold, he snatches a handful of Theon’s hair and drags him into a kiss, swallowing the laugh out of his mouth. Theon melts into it so suddenly that Jon rolls Theon onto his back, releasing the grip in his hair to take hold of his left hand and pinning it back against the furs.

When he pulls back to let Theon breathe, kissing down his neck, the laugh is still tinged in his voice. “Are you sure you don’t want —?”

“No,” Jon interrupts, kissing along the column of Theon’s throat. “Just this.”

Theon’s free hand reaches up and curls in Jon’s hair, and a long, deep breath flows from his chest in an exhale. He’s not sure what this kind of affection feels like to Theon now, but he seems to enjoy it, eyes closed, the twitch of a smile on his face. He looks almost happy, as Jon dotes on him. He kisses along Theon’s collarbones before taking hold of his mouth again, squeezing Theon’s hand so hard he whimpers.

The crash of the waves is rhythmic and calming against the hull of the ship, rocking them as their kisses slow to heavy breathing. He’s warm to Jon’s touch, but trembling, kissing back deeply. 

When Jon releases Theon’s hand to touch the side of his face, he feels tears soaking the hair at his temples. His legs fold around Jon’s waist, pulling him close. He feels so delicate like this. He’s far more fragile than Ygritte had ever been. Jon holds his face as he kisses him again, pressing him tenderly into the furs. He’s entranced by the touch of him, the way he kisses Jon with everything he has. 

“Theon,” Jon gasps into the kiss, “Theon, you’re beautiful.”

This time, Theon doesn’t freeze or argue, doesn’t even pause, just tightens his grip in Jon’s hair and whines against his mouth. Tears spill fresh from the corners of his eyes, and Jon pulls Theon closer, tucking Theon’s face against his throat. Theon doesn’t stop, still mouthing soft kisses against Jon’s neck, until his tears stop running and his shaky breath evens out. They don’t say anything else to each other, silently curled together as the ship rocks from to and fro. The wash of waves and their slowing breathing the only sounds in Jon’s bunk.

Tucked into Theon’s side, Jon’s mind drifts to Winterfell during the years of the long summer, the summer of their childhoods, the way Theon always treated each time as if it were Jon’s first. Jon had always thought Theon was teasing him, mocking his inexperience, but he knows better now. He understands it now, feels it in the way Theon presses against him. Jon must have done it, too, when they were young. Pressed close to him as he keened for it; needed him to be sweet, to be gentle, to have something that was tender, even if it was an act. Jon tries to remember what he had been like, then, but it’s so hard to recall now how things had been when their roles were reversed. Maybe neither of them had known what they were doing. Just two young men, lost and abandoned and just trying to feel a little less alone. He covers Theon with his body, with the thick winter wolfskins. He’s so warm, but his heart is still fluttering as if he’ll break. 

As the ship rocks through the night, Jon tries to think what it would have been like, at a different time, in that other life. Even now, he can't fathom caring so deeply for the Theon Greyjoy he grew up alongside in Winterfell. In that other world not ravaged by war, not on the precipice of the Long Night, but safe at home and surrounded by family in the North, it would be nothing of consequence for either of them. But now, both men grown, under such heavy obligation, there is little else that would come of it. 

While Theon fades into a heavy sleep, curled tightly under Jon’s arm, Jon watches him by the dim moonlight, the soft glow of the lantern. He finds he can’t sleep himself for the anxiety still roiling in his blood, fear of what will come from council with Cersei Lannister. But Theon sleeps sounder than a lamb, not jolting or crying in his sleep the way he had when he’d first slept beside Jon on Dragonstone.

Jon pulls Theon to his chest, revelling in the soft purr he lets out in his sleep. Heart hammering against his ribs, Jon leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his temple. He wishes he could know what Cersei Lannister will say, how this war will end. He wishes he could know that his family will survive the winter, that Theon will make it through. He wishes he could know that they will make it to the other side of this, alive and as well as they can manage. 

He wishes a great many things.

He doesn’t know, he can’t. But right now, Arya, Sansa and Bran are safe in Winterfell. Right now, Jon has them, safe and alive. And he has Theon, pressed warm, solid and still into Jon’s skin, sleeping more peacefully than he thinks he has in years, and it’s almost enough. For now, it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the ending isn't disappointing. I wanted their last scene together in season 7 to still be compatible. And poooossibly for it to sound like "I love you." lmao

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Swimming" by Florence + The Machine
> 
> Sorry I lied. This is the last one. Promise.


End file.
